A better night

I walked into Woody's room tonight and was talking to his nurse. "How's he doing," I asked, like I always do. She told me he was doing fine. I checked all his numbers; his blood oxygen levels, his blood pressure, his ventilator settings, and how he looked, and sure enough, he looked about the same as before. "I'm glad to see that, since he had a tough day." She looked at me oddly and then said rather emphatically that he had not had a tough day at all. I like hearing stuff like that because it puts it in perspective. Sure, his x-ray was showing some haze, but it's not really worth worrying about now, because it can mean a lot of things. Also, to be entirely realistic, Woody is almost inevitably going to have some degree of chronic lung disease for his time in the NICU. Micropreemies are born with undeveloped lungs, and they are just not ready to breathe normally. That does not mean he won't be a normal little kid; it just means he's going to have some challenges before he can go home.

Woody's new IV line is not in the perfect place, but it's good enough to give him fluids and some nutrients, and he's doing ok with the small amounts of milk they're starting him on (for yet another perspective on how tiny he is, they're starting him on half a cc of milk every other hour. Uh, yeah, that's pretty tiny). Also, they managed to give him a little blood transfusion before the vein line worked out of his umbilical stump. I'll sleep a little better tonight, I think.

Preview of tomorrow's worries: will his digestive system start up properly? Can he start to be weaned off his ventilator? And the big head ultrasound is Friday, and then we'll see what, if any, degree of cranial bleeding he may have had after birth. That can be a decent predictor in many, but not all cases, to predict later neurological issues.

Thanks for all the well wishes & love & prayers. Maggie and I really, really appreciate it.