0630 wake up. Wife pumps and we head up( I obviously don’t mention every time she pumps. 8ish times a day )

Weight on the board is 2185.

He is on 26% oxygen.

The nurse is the same one from yesterday! I’m glad we are getting her frequently rather than rotating through different nurses!

She tells us he had a pretty good night, less frequent events! The nurse last night was able to wean him to 21% for a portion of the night. Wow! Stayed below 30 other than to recover from events!

His respiration rate is higher than his normal. Heart rate seems a little higher too. I wonder if he is slightly too warm.

We do 0800 cares, I take his temp 37.5 yea slightly warm. Mom changes his diaper, just pee. During his brake from nasal mask on the neopuff, the respiratory therapist lets RT stay off of pressure for a bit while getting blow by (higher oxygen percent air that is blowing out of the mask)He tolerates it extremely well, he likes loves not having anything on his face! He explores his face with his hands.  He feels his nose.  I bet he is slightly confused,  usually what he touches is a silicone dome over his nose.

Then we have to put him back on his mask.

Eye doctor arrives and his exam begins.

I anxiously wait for him to tell us his eyes are the same or worse and we need to do surgery.

Eye exam is complete. He tells us his left eye has responded to the laser surgery well, the ROP is regressing!

His right eye has one area that did not respond.  A small area has veins that  are tortuous, and angry.  A sign there is something going on.

He says he is overall happy how his eyes are doing.  He will be back on Thursday to look again.

If it’s not improved by Thursday he gets an injection of a medication directly into his eyeball. This portion will not respond to laser surgery so the inext ion is the only option.

As we discuss everything with the Dr. The nurse gives RT his binky, he did excellently through the whole thing!

No sweets needed.

RT was on 26% oxygen through the whole care and eye exam.  That is about the lowest he even hit yesterday. We are in for a good day! ?

We hang out, with him,  give him his binky,  milk swabs he is relaxed amd suckles away.

The change to his medications must be helping and he is finally recovering from his surgery/ intubation/ extubation!

The prednisolone we swapped to (a medium strength steroid) is helping too!

The respiraroty therapist stops by and turns his NAVA level from 2.6 to 2.2.

1100 cares go well, respiratory therapist gets the ok and turns nava level down to 2.0, apnea delay for backup to start from 2 second to 6 second!  After cares down to 23% oxygen!

We go to lunch.

Back to Nicu.

Still on 23%!

1400 cares, temp is 37.0 just pee. Skin to skin time I get to do it again today! Mom wants him to sleep more, and feels like he gets more awake on her trying to search for food because he knows it’s being stored around somewhere nearby. Amazing how his instinct is, babies must be programmed how to get food before birth?

He is active for a bit but calms down Eventally.

22% oxygen.

1630 he gets hungry and starts looking for food again,  silly boy.  He yanks off his nasal mask several times,  mom comes to the rescue and gets it back on before he desats.  Good job mom!

We put him back and start cares early.

Swaddled up binky time feed started. Weaned to 21%!

He high sats for a little!

Dinner time,  Back to NICU.

Nurse is the same one from last night!

He is still on 21%

This is awesome!

2000 Cares. Mom and I had noticed The heater throughout the day had been cycling and getting too hot briefly. So the respiratory therapist asks the Dr.to swap heaters.

They end up deciding that because he did so well today and loved the blow by so much,  they are going to put him on CPAP again!

Impressive!

They swap machines over,  CPAP of 8! He does well through all of this.

22% oxygen.

21%

Woah! This is impressive!  Today was an amazing day.

The desats he did have today were not as deep, most of them caused by his humidifier getting hot and making him angry or other external factors like us bugging him for cares, water condensing inside his ventilator tube and dripping Down his nose, him getting frustrated and pulling off his mask.

It really is a roller coaster. From a big desat two days ago that scared us so bad we thought we might have to intubate or loose him. All the way to today back to a good day like where we were before surgery.

Please hold steady little man!  Your strong, resilient,  and opinionated.

Really we have seen it’s not if, but when. Have to stay on our toes, the battle is not over.

It is the victorys even the small ones that give hope.

We love every gram of you.

Keep on growing stronger!

As one smart fella put it,

Today was a good day.