April 7, 2013:

RJ is doing fantastic on his Bubble CPAP!!! He's still been able to be on room air from just minutes after being switched to it. His chest x-ray from yesterday was the best he's had his whole entire life!! Everyone is very happy with his progress. He's been breathing great. We've been having some wonderful snuggle sessions. He's able to keep his sats in the upper 90's-100%!! I'm getting to hold him twice a day now. Our nurse the past 2 days said that since he does so great she doesn't see why we couldn't hold him even more. :) The plan is to wean his pressures tomorrow as we move towards the soon possibility of starting a bottle and breastfeeding!! That's what I'm super excited about. He's still doing great with using his binki and tolerating his feeds well. His weight the other night was 4 lb 14 oz. We were a lil skeptical b/c it was such a huge jump from previous. Last night he had the same weight, but early this morning and then during today he's had several poopies. One diaper today weighed 50grams, so I'm guessing his weight will be down a lil tonight which should be more accurate. The silly lil guy likes to hold onto that poop. He's been having very stinky gas the past couple days while I've been holding him, so glad it finally produced something. :)

Last night we got to give RJ a big boy bath!! We got to bring him outside his isolette and bathe him in a tub of water at the bedside. I held him like a football to begin with while I washed his hair and face over the tub. Then I held his head/neck secure while we dunked his lil body into the warm water to bathe the rest of him. We got it on video and it's so cute. :) He was not the biggest fan when we dunked his lil body into the water. It's going to just take some getting used to. His lil legs are so strong and he would push against the side of the wash basin. I really had to hold onto him. He's going to be walking before we know it. :) I'll see if I can figure out how to attach a movie to this blog for all to see.

Anyways, I have a vascular MD appointment the end of this month to get a second opinion on my pseudo aneurysm treatment. I was able to get all my records and images last week and read through them. It's funny being on this side of the medical information. When you are the doctors and nurses you tend to sugar coat things for your patients and don't always give them every detail. Reading through my medical records I found information that was grazed over when it was told to us. The radiologist reports stated I did have a pseudo aneurysm, unlike what the docs told us that they thought I had one so wanted to do further imaging. Also, the "significant narrowing of my right ICA" happened to be 75-80%. That would have been nice to know. Anyways, I'm glad I'm getting adequate blood flow now and don't hear anymore of that whooshing in my right ear. I'm also glad that the aspirin I'm taking is preventing me from getting any blood clots. I'm praying that my pseudo aneurysm will just disappear and I can be an even more special case, since my stroke doc stated he'd never seen one disappear.

Well my husband is on his way home from work and we are going to spend a few hours together before crawling into bed for the night. I already took one nap this afternoon, but the bed sounds all too inviting right now. :) Thanks again for all your prayers, support, and continued love. We greatly appreciate it!!