See you later isolator!

There were two steps forward and two steps backward. Jordan was quickly put onto all bottle feeds yesterday. We weren’t expecting that until next week, but he has been feeding well, so they tried him out. He has been feeding more than the minimum and seems to enjoy the eating. When we hold him in the proper position he does the cutest thing. He starts puckering and even making the sucking motion before we even give him the bottle. He knows when it’s time to eat. As I mentioned last month, his doctor gives a special treat when babies take all of their food by bottle – she moves them into a crib! Jordan is in a little NICU crib, but it’s really it’s about the size of a cradle. I have been looking forward to this moment for so many months, that yesterday I just realized that I didn’t want it. It’s kind of like people who say they look forward to Fridays. No one looks forward to working Friday, they just look forward to leaving work on Friday. I wasn’t really looking forward to him getting into a NICU crib, I’m looking forward to him getting out of a NICU crib.

Of course we must remember the two steps back as well. First of all is the breathing. They had to increase the oxygen flow a couple of days ago. He’s been having a lot of bradycardias (bradys) where is heart rate dips too low for a minute. That means his breathing needs to be improved before we can move forward. The head nurse thinks that he probably just has a lot of fluid in his lungs. This isn’t a sudden thing and it’s not a crisis that requires him to go back on the vent. They are just going to give him some medicine that makes him urinate more. If he pees more, he retains less fluid. He may lose some weight this weekend, but if this works he will breathe much better. If it doesn’t work, then they will have spent hundreds of dollars of medicine to make a kid pee when the kid already knows how to pee. As they have fed him more this week, he has had more bradys. Last night the nurse said enough and put him back on tubes for every other feeds. That is also a part of the reason that they had to turn up the flow. So technically, he is in the cradle, but eating less than he was on Wednesday. They just want to give him a rest for a day or two before going back on the bottle. Essentially, he needs to breathe a bit better and then we can start moving forward.

My son has been in the hospital for over 3 months now. I want him home. The mama Ali wants him home. You want him home. Rest assured that as soon as we know something about that I will post it. He is closer, but right now if I ask the doctor when he can come home, she will just start talking about his breathing and lowering his oxygen. We want Jordan to be paroled from the big house, but we still don’t know when it will happen. If we can fix the breathing with the urination then we will know something really soon.