Another Exciting Day

Hunter's weight: 3 lbs, 7.5 oz

Today is the fifth day that I haven't been able to see my little Hunter. Mommy is feeling better though so she has been able to visit, take pictures, and keep me up to date on how cute he is. His nurses have all lately been commenting that he is acting so much better than he had been. He's opening his eyes more often, squirming around, and doing his best to get better so he can come home.

The doctor he had today has made it her mission to get him off of the ventilator. So far it sounds like he is making some good progress. His oxygen has been stable below 30% and now they are focusing on his breathing rate. The ventilator was set to 58 breaths per minute this morning but since he's tolerating it so well they were able to turn it all the way down to 48. I guess they are making much larger steps than they had planned yesterday when they said that were going to do 3 per day. Even with the big step he took today it's going to be a while before he is off completely. Doctor says they won't be taking him off of the vent until they can get the settings under 20 breaths per minute. To sum it all up, his oxygen is good, his breaths per minute are improving, the last thing they need to work on is the pressure setting (I don't know much about that yet).

The respiratory therapist has begun giving Hunter breathing treatments (albuterol) to help him prepare for breathing without the assistance of the ventilator. From what I heard he wasn't responding to the treatments at first but after some time it started kicking in. They're going to be doing these regularly now, I don't know for how long.

Another area where Hunter has been making big changes is with his feeding. Yesterday was a huge day when he increased his meals from 4 ml to 11 ml every four hours. Today he has taken another step, he is now up to 13 ml every THREE hours. Just like with his breathing its a big step but he still has a long way to go. By the time he comes home he should be eating what a newborn eats - 2 to 4 oz per meal. To get an idea of how far he still has to go there are about 30 ml in an ounce so he's eating about a quarter of a typical newborn's meal.

Everything is clearing up for Mr. Hunter and he is getting ready to do some growing. Today he finally finished his antibiotics prescription which means his pneumonia must have cleared up. Also, a cardioloist has looked at the echo they did over the weekend and found nothing wrong. He has a heart murmur and they know what is causing it but it is of no concern, it will get better on it's own, and he shouldn't need any more echos.