I'm so sorry I haven't updated sooner! I've had my hands full these last couple of days holding tight to my baby boy. Oh, and we went home on Saturday night and spent our longest time away from Bryce so far - almost 24 hours. It was good to get away but we were ready to be back.
Well, Bryce's second CPAP trial didn't last long but he gave it a fighting chance. We're working toward a more reasonable goal of weaning his vent settings as low as possible before trying again.
Of course, that'll also depend on surgery.
A follow up ultrasound on Monday showed a shift of excess fluid from the side that had a new shunt placed last week to the other. The "plan" is to wait and watch. As long as the fluid doesn't build then they'll leave him alone but if it does than they'll likely place one more of these temporary shunts before finally doing the permanent, VP, shunt. A baby like Bryce, though, cannot go to surgery without being on a ventilator so it's hard to get excited about extubating him to CPAP only to put him back on the vent at least once for a surgery.
Otherwise Bryce is doing great. He's still on full feeds and tolerating them very well. He's been on a 24 calorie milk mixture but today they went up to 27. Since he is still on his pain medication they can't go up on his amount because it would over hydrate him. But the plan is to have him off of his pain med. on Saturday and then they'll probably go up on the amount then.
Gain, gain, gain - weight and strength - that's the goal.
Weight wise Bryce was up to 3.99018 pounds two nights ago (I prefer to be exact, if you couldn't tell) but is down a little over the last couple of nights. I suspect he'll hit the four pound mark any day now though. Very exciting!
He's also on a trial of maintaning his own body temperature. They started him by turning his bed on just fan a few days ago. That went well so last night they opened his bed and bundled him up to see if he can handle being in an open crib. We're working our way toward a real crib. Once we do that and get him on CPAP we'll be able to just reach in and pick him up pretty much anytime. That will be a great day.
Lastly, the eye doctor came by for his second exam yesterday morning. He seemed shocked and said that it was amazing that this former 24 weeker doesn't have any signs of eye disease. He'll continue to check him every two weeks until 45 weeks just to be sure though.
Bryce is 33 weeks and 4 days now. He still has six weeks and a few days until his due date.
