Life in "Special Care"

(Pictures from Wednesday. Colby was out cold for a bit. Being a preemie and trying to grow and all is hard work!)



First and foremost, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

We were told that once Colby got to Special Care, things would move quickly...and they are. He's out of his incubator as of last night and is now in a crib. He's off of his IV's which supplemented his milk feeding. Today he gets his broviac line out. Once he has that out and is healed, we can give him a "real" bath versus just a sponge bath. He's Also really getting the hang of taking a bottle and is even starting to breast feed! He's currently being fed every 3 hours. But before too long, the timing and amount will be more on his schedule.


I asked Dr Casey now that he's in the Special Care, how long until he comes home. The answer depends on Colby. He needs to come off the cannula. They test him once a week and what they do is simply take the cannula out of his nose and see how his blood saturation levels, heart rate and all do. If he does OK with that, they then tick him off to make him cry...and again watch his numbers. Lastly, they'll give him a bottle and see how he can do by totally breathing on his own while he tries to swallow and all. If he passes all three in a row, they repeat it the next week and if he passes it again, he comes off the cannula. They already did his first test and he did great with just laying there. But once they got him upset, his levels dropped. So they'll try again next week and see how he does.


The doctors and nurses also said that he'll have regular doctors visits once he comes home. Maybe even a visiting nurse too. The NICU sets up all the appointments before we even go home. Then I guess we simply continue the appointments there after.

Lot's happening but all for good reason. Wow how things change. Sometimes the past 4 months seem like a long time, other times it seems like it goes by so quickly.

Tracey and I are kicking it into high gear to prepare for Colby to come home. We know that it won't be until maybe a month or so, but time flies and we want to be as ready as we can.