Day 43: March 29th, 2019
Stopped by to visit little man this afternoon. Sibling restrictions are still in effect, so Zylee went to drop in care. Once again I couldn’t get her checked in fast enough. She was pulling on my pant leg to let me know she wanted to go play. Such a goof! Word is that the sibling restriction will be lifted tomorrow. I’m really hoping so! Addi is dying to visit baby brother, and is hoping she’ll have an opportunity to hold him this weekend!
Ryker is doing well! They’ve increased his feeds to 14ml/hr, and still tolerating stomach feeds. They’ve also dropped him down to a CPAP of 5! Next steps are to follow…
-They’ll stop his caffeine dose tomorrow. Caffeine is given to preemies to help stimulate them to breathe. It takes approximately 5 days for it to leave his system. By then, they’ll decide if they can switch him to highflow cannula! Wohoo!
-They are gradually weaning him from continuous feeds to bolus feeds (full feeds every 3 hours)
– When he gets switched to highflow, we’ll start working on breast and bottle feeding. I remember with Z, this seemed like it took FOREVER. The amount of food they require them to be eating before they send them home was equivalent to a turkey dinner every 3 hours. So it takes quite a bit of time for them to have the energy to take a full bottle. Not to mention, with him being so early, he has to learn his hunger cues so he will know when to eat once he’s home.
I haven’t heard much in regards to his shunt situation other than they are happy with how the subgaleal shunt is working at the moment. I know they had discussed at one point that if the clot that is blocking his cerebral fluid doesn’t clear, they would have to do another procedure to place the full/permanent shunt. However, I’ll have to inquire more about when they would consider doing this.
I know we still have quite a bit of time here in Denver, baby steps! But it’s so exciting to hear that he’s making progress in the right direction!