Week 4 Update – Thursday, June 26, 2008

This was a pretty good week for Justin. He was even called boring by one of the nurse practitioners because he’s the most stable out of all the little ones currently in the NICU.

On Sunday Justin was switched from a high-frequency ventilator which provides tiny quantities of air at rapid rates using lower pressures to a conventional ventilator which uses high pressures to deliver breaths and maintain a relatively normal pattern of inhalation and exhalation. He has been responding pretty well to the switch with minimal desats so they have been able to decrease the amount of oxygen he’s receiving and the amount of breaths they’re providing has been decreased from 60 breaths per minute to 20. They hope to wean him off the ventilator this evening and switch him to a nasal c-pap tomorrow morning.

Breast milk feedings have been increased from 1 ml every 6 hours to 4 ml every 3 hours. Justin has been tolerating his feedings really well with very minimal residuals (meaning he is digesting his milk) so the plan is to increase feedings by .5 ml every 12 hours.

Justin was moved to the isolation pod as a result of his staph infection and will more than likely remain there until he is discharged. Additional tests will not be performed unless he shows any signs of illness. He also had a repeat head ultrasound this morning which showed the same grade 1 bleed so no more ultrasounds will be performed.

Justin’s current weight is 530 grams (1 lb 2 oz).

Highlights of the week
Holding Justin for the first time was the best feeling in the world. I can’t wait for Carl to experience it this weekend.

Justin had his first poopy diaper on Friday. I’m sure I won’t be as excited about them once he comes home and I’m changing them on a more regular basis but for now this is a huge milestone.