A good day for Colby!

(pictures from tonight. Colby with his CPAP)

Sorry I haven't updated in a couple days. Good things come to those who wait and today brings good news.

The doctor called Tracey yesterday and said that they were going to try to give him a steroid for his lungs. They said that by now they wanted him to try to get off the respirator and onto the CPAP. The steroid is given in three-day doses which began yesterday.

We found Colby with this crazy contraption tonight. It's a CPAP. Although it looks like he's an astronaut, it's actually a step in the right direction for him. The respirator used to breath for Colby. The CPAP now just blows steady air into his nose and he has to do the work. He has tried this a couple of times before but within a couple hours they had to put him back on the respirator. So let's keep our fingers crossed that with the steroids he'll stay on this.

He seemed to have mixed feelings about his new setup. On one hand, he was very alert, looking all around him and happy to have this new liberty. On the other, he kept doing his best to pull the CPAP off himself....and succeeded a couple times. Tracey and I heard his oxygen monitor going off so we lifted the blanket that covers his incubator only to find him staring up at us with his big blueberry eyes....and the CPAP was moved down blowing into his mouth as he sucked on it!!! I did my best to try to get the thing back in his nose but with him grabbing at the tubes, the blue styrofoam things falling off and my hands getting tangled in all the wires and pulling off some sensors while he rolled about, Tracey went and asked for a nurses help. ( I almost had it though...)

Anyway, the nurses will again have their hands full tonight.

He was doing very well. As you can see he had his eyes wide open, eager to look around him. He's got pudgy little cheeks. He is so much happier on his back. Thus far he could look to his right or his left as the respirator kept his head firmly set to one side or the other. Now, we can lie on his back or side and move his head around. MUCH better for both him and mom and dad !

He gained another ounce yesterday. The steroids could make him loose some weight, so we'll need to see what happens. He was up to 2 pounds and 11 ounces I think. They upped his feedings now to 5.5 cc's an hour. I can remember when he was hovering around 1 to 1.5 cc's an hour and we would talk about how good that was. This is good as we can now start moving some of the breast milk we have at home to the hospital's freezer. To give you a visual, our freezer in the kitchen has 3 shelves dedicated to breast milk and one with some ice cream and probably some frozen pizzas or something. Even that shelf is starting to have a couple bottles of milk on it now too. I think Evan avoids the freezer at all costs because he is forced to look at the stockpile of his mom's frozen breast milk. Not something a 14 year old boy is really comfortable with. But he's doing fine with it all.

Tracey got to give Colby a bath yesterday when she was visiting. It's more of a sponge bath because he can't really leave his incubator. And tonight I got to give him his little green pacifier. He seemed to really like it as he could suck away as his eyes swung from left to right. First to dad looking in on one side, then over to mom smiling down at the other side of his incubator. I really enjoyed giving him his pacifier. I could stand there all day with him.

I can't wait to see my boy tomorrow. With a little luck I'll find him still wearing his CPAP. And if he's stable, I may also be able to hold him again !!! Lots to look forward to!!