Hunter is Getting Better - Slowly

Today has been another great day, just like yesterday.

Hunter's doctors haven't been making any drastic changes to his breathing and that seems to be just fine with him. They have been adjusting his oxygen and other settings as he requires and they are gradually coming down.

Just about every time Mommy or I talk with one of his doctors we learn something new. Here's what I learned today. Hunter (and I assume everyone else) has small hairs in their lungs that move around to pull naturally occurring fluids from the bottom of the lungs up so you can get it out. This fluid comes out as you breathe.

The machine that Hunter is on doesn't allow him to breathe though. Instead of taking regular breaths like big people, his machine gives him ten or so very small breaths each second. Because of this the fluid doesn't get out and keeps getting pulled up to the top of his lungs. The fluid is building up in top lobe of his lungs and has caused that portion of his lungs to collapse. It's not as scary as it sounds, his doctors just need to do what they can to manually remove that fluid. Several times a day they vibrate his chest with a little massager to loosen up the fluid and then try to suck it out through his breathing tube. He doesn't like the vibrating and sometimes he doesn't tolerate it for very long.

He still has a long way to go. He's stable and slowly getting better, but he's likely to be in there for about another two months. It's been three weeks now of going to the hospital to visit with him every day. I figure we only have another 8-12 weeks before we can bring him home... thats quite a countdown.