A Week Long Birthday!

Today was a wonderful day in Patrick-land.

We haven't had any more apnea spells since Monday morning and Patrick's no-whip-extra-foam-soy-latte-caffeine shot.  This seems to have done the trick to keep him chugging along.  We hope that it will stay this way, but know that there are no certainties. 


Mom holding the kiddo and spoiling some of my text for later, his CPAP has been removed!  

 Well, if you read the caption above you will see that Patrick is also doing much better on the lung development and the doctors have elected to give him a run at having just a nasal cannula.  This just gives him a little supplemental air supply, but nothing to the degree of the CPAP was doing for him.  The docs indicated that his chest x-rays were looking much better, and they hope to have him off all oxygen soon.  That will be the day we can celebrate Mr. Naked Face!  It has also given us a chance to see his forehead and top of his noggin for the first time. 


Patrick close to momma

Patrick just melts into Christy as she holds him close to her body.  Actually after this moment in the NICU, he was up and looking around.  While he still can't quite control his little eyes, he looks a bit like a tiny zombie with their eyes rolling up into their heads.  But he's our little zombie...


Blue eyes and light hair (for now)  The tape you see on his cheek is to hold the gavage tube in, and the imprint on his temple is from his sunglasses.



Momma and Patrick are both happy, content, and sleepy

 Patrick's bilirubin continues to stay high for now so as we arrived in the room this afternoon we actually got to see his back for the first time.  The doctor's let us know that the bilirubin levels can remain high for a few days until he is able to get enough food to help cleanse his system.  To that end they also increased his feeding again to 1.6mL/hour.


P-man with his shades on, and making sure his tan is even on both sides.

That's it for the one week celebration,
Big Fat Panda (Andy)