Our
Second Month at Home
11/02/04 -
12/02/04
November,
2004
Joshua has
done very well this month!!! He's still growing like a weed...eating every
1.5 - 3 hours during the day (if this continues, I'm not going to be able to
keep him in milk!). He's taking 3
ounces (or more) per feed now, and we're even adding some rice cereal to some of
his bottles in the hopes that it will thicken things and hold him over a little
longer (so far, it's bought us about 15-30 minutes at the most...). What a
little piggy! He's 10 pounds, 9 ounces -- hard to believe! He has SO
much personality...he smiles a lot, and is starting to giggle
a little bit. He's found his hands, and doesn't hesitate to use them --
whether it's to pull on necklaces, scratch with his little nails, or suck his
fingers or thumb. We saw his pediatrician
today,
and she said that the bringing the hands to his face and pulling them together
(he uses one hand to hold the other thumb in his mouth) is something that
developmentally, you usually see between 2 and 3 months. Since his
"adjusted age" (the age he would be had he been born on his due date) is is just
over 7 weeks, he's a little "advanced" (Mama's little genius!!).
The best news
of all is that Joshua is off his oxygen! We did a home oximetry study
overnight on the 17th of November. All that means is that we didn't put
him on oxygen that night and we
attached a pulse oximeter to his foot while he
slept. It collected data about his oxygen saturations, and then that data
got sent to the pulmonologist. The pulmonologist was happy with what the
study showed and said that we could continue to leave Josh off the oxygen
(although he wanted him to stay on the monitor at night for a little longer just
to make sure that he doesn't have any "episodes" while being off the oxygen).
So far, so good -- Josh picked up
a little cold from somewhere, and was very
congested starting November 24th, so we went ahead and put him back on the
oxygen overnight for the next 3 days -- truth be told, he probably didn't need
it, but I figure that if we have the oxygen in the house, it couldn't hurt for
him to have that
little extra support while he was so congested. He's been
back off it now for about 3 - 4 days, and is doing fine. I'm calling the pulmonologist tomorrow to see about bringing the monitor back in for one last
download and then getting him off that as well -- the final step toward being a
"real baby!"
We finally
got Josh off all his medications, as well! The diuretic and the sodium
both went when the oxygen went, and he's done well without those. We got
rid of the Zantac awhile back (I think
it was upsetting his stomach...he was
spitting up so often before, and that decreased significantly once we took him
off the Zantac). Finally got him off the Reglan last week -- that was the
final medicine that he come home from the NICU on...what a great feeling
not
to be loading him up with meds all the time! The only thing he's on right
now is a multivitamin (which is about the nastiest thing I've ever come
across)...it's not his favorite, but we trick him by putting a little into each
of his feeds (we tried it all at once, and he promptly threw it right back
up...didn't do that one again!).
I can't
believe that another month has passed. I'm so thrilled that Josh is doing
so well. I wish that we could take him out in public -- not because I
really want to drag him around everywher
e, but it would be so nice to just be
able to run in with him if I needed to stop by the grocery store or run out to
the mall or Wal-Mart or Target. I know that we can't shield him from
everything, but with this being cold and flu season, we've got to be REALLY
careful with him being exposed to things -- with his chronic lung disease, he's
at a very high risk for catching viruses, and if they were to settle in his
lungs, he'd end up back in the hospital. He's being "vaccinated" (actually
just given antibodies) against
RSV,
which is a respiratory virus that could really do some damage to him (which
shows up basically as a cold in a relatively healthy adult or child), but it's
still not a good idea for us to take him places where he'd come into contact
with a lot of people, some of whom might not be completely healthy.
I count my
blessings every day -- Joshua is such a wonderful little miracle, and I can't
believe how far he's come. I can't believe that he's almost 5 months old,
getting ready to celebrate his first Christmas. He's changed our lives
completely, but I wouldn't trade him for all the riches in the world.
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Joshua has
done very well this month!!! He's still growing like a weed...eating every
1.5 - 3 hours during the day (if this continues, I'm not going to be able to
keep him in milk!). He's taking 3
ounces (or more) per feed now, and we're even adding some rice cereal to some of
his bottles in the hopes that it will thicken things and hold him over a little
longer (so far, it's bought us about 15-30 minutes at the most...). What a
little piggy! He's 10 pounds, 9 ounces -- hard to believe! He has SO
much personality...he smiles a lot, and is starting to giggle
a little bit. He's found his hands, and doesn't hesitate to use them --
whether it's to pull on necklaces, scratch with his little nails, or suck his
fingers or thumb. We saw his pediatrician
today,
and she said that the bringing the hands to his face and pulling them together
(he uses one hand to hold the other thumb in his mouth) is something that
developmentally, you usually see between 2 and 3 months. Since his
"adjusted age" (the age he would be had he been born on his due date) is is just
over 7 weeks, he's a little "advanced" (Mama's little genius!!).
