Happy Tuesdays

Baker is doing great! As I've noted previously Tuesdays are usually not the best days for us. We get the cranial ultrasounds on Tuesday, which tell us the progress of the IVH (or brain bleed)… Well today's update was absolutely unexpected and wonderful. He had such good progress from the last one as far as the bleeds subsiding that they don't need to do the ultrasounds anymore. This doesn't mean that we are completely out of the woods. On the left side of his brain he was still showing signs of beginning stage PVL. These are the scary cysts that develop when babies have these types of bleeds. These cysts can be the cause of developmental problems and worst case cerebral palsy. We will find out the extent of the PVL when he gets an MRI a few weeks from today.

So Dr. Power Wean is on tonight. I'm not sure if I posted a lot about him, and I'm sure he's a great doctor – but every time he's taking over (when Baker's doctor is out of town or not on her shift) he makes dramatic changes to Baker's ventilator settings. We came in today and his pressures were decreased a little and his breaths per minute were decreased by 30%. This makes Baker work harder to breathe. Now with all that said Baker was doing awesome this evening he was on room air when we came in and breathing well on his own. He is working harder to breathe, but so far so good. I just hope he keeps it up, because last time he went down really far really fast he didn't do well and it took him many days to recover. Back to the old two steps forward three steps back which our Doctor told us was not her plan for him.

I'm going back to watch Baker some more to make sure he tolerates his new settings, and be there to tell the nurse if he isn't acting normal. I'm going to post pictures once I get back.