Ouchie!

Poor Ollie...his bipap mask rubbed a blister beside his nose overnight last night.

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Ollie with Bipap Mask

And this would be a picture of Ollie with his bipap mask on...he's not too sure if he likes it.
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Ollie without Bipap Mask

Here is a photo of Oliver right after his bipap mask came off from overnight.

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A Quick Post

Well, we're in our own room now. We moved to the 5100 wing around 8pm. Ollie and I have settled in for the night.

Everyone in the PICU was amazed at how quickly Ollie has been progressing. One of the respiratory therapists said that he was surprised at how little time Oliver spent on bipap and at how well he had been doing off of the bipap.

Ollie is continuing to receive g-tube feedings. Right now we've switched from formula to Pedialyte and we're gradually increasing the amount he's getting. We started out at 5mL per hour. That was upped to 7mL per hour. Four hours later it was increased to 9mL per hour and once four more hours pass it'll be bumped to 11mL. He'll continue to receive IV fluids while getting the tube feedings. As the tube feeds increase, the IV fluids will decrease.

In other news, I finally got my shower today. Yea for clean hair and a change of clothes! The only disappointment we've had is that the Ronald McDonald House Family Room for parents of pediatric patients has been closed during most of our stay. It is run by volunteers and they've had issues getting it staffed the past few days. So I didn't get access to a shower until we got our own room.

That's all for now...it's way past my bedtime! =)

Three Cheers!

We are SO pleased with Ollie's progress. He had two chest x-rays overnight and both look great. He was weaned off of the bipap around 10-ish this morning. Once bipap was off, his pacifier went in! He was such a happy fellow to have his paci back. =) He's also been getting g-tube feedings since about 9am. Right now it's being done pretty slowly - just 5mL per hour. But it's still a big step.

Oliver has kept his oxygen saturations up since getting off of the bipap. If he keeps progressing this well, he'll likely get a regular room sometime this afternoon. Yay!

We've been fortunate to have good doctors, respiratory therapists, nurses, etc. Our main nurses have been Amy and Melissa. They have done a great job looking after our Ollie and looking after us, too. They even pulled a reclining chair beside Ollie's bed so that I could snooze a bit during the night. I probably managed about 3 or 4 hours of sleep last night plus an hour "nap" in the cafeteria this morning. Yes, I said the cafeteria. During rounds, patients aren't allowed any visitors. So I headed to the cafeteria around 8am for breakfast. I found a booth to eat in and it was situated where I could lean against a wall, prop my legs and feet on the bench, rest my head on the seat back, and snooze. Do you think I might have been a wee bit tired?

I leave you with two Swedish proverbs that we have found to be quite true:

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow."

and

"Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief."

Thank you all so very much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.

An Update from the Mama

Well, as ya'll have noticed most of the recent posts have been from the Daddy. The Mama was standing by Ollie's "crib," singing lullabies and songs, and stroking his little hands and feet. But after dinner, my legs and feet were ready for a little break!

The closest I've been to tears today is when we came back from dinner. Oliver had just gotten a dose of morphine before I walked into the room. He's was resting and looking so angelic. I began to rub that chubby little hand of his again and told him how much I loved him and how proud I was of him. He opened those big blue eyes and from behind that big ol' bipap mask he smiled his big ol' toothless grin. He smiled so big that his eyes were smiling too. I am constantly amazed at how sweet he can be. And how forgiving as well.

We could all learn a lot from that baby boy.

Smiling Ollie

After a nice dinner, Bekka went back to the PICU to find a grinning Ollie-Bear awaiting her return. He's tolerating the bi-pap reasonably well and even managed to work in a little binky time while they had the mask off to conduct the cough assist and before they placed it back on.

Too bad for the little guy that he can't do both at the same time :(

Extubation is successful so far!

Good news. They successfully extubated the little fella around 5:30 with minimal fuss. The challenge right now is to fit a bi-pap mask! Little people don't often wear them and so they have to adapt larger masks. He seems to be breathing pretty well even between fittings which is great news.

With luck, he'll only need the bipap for a couple of days to fully stabilize. Another big plus with the extubation is they can now provide more serious pain relief. Since morphine and other opiates affect breathing function, they needed to wake him up fully before they could safely medicate. Hopefully it helps him sleep. I know if my stomach had just been wrapped around my esophagus, I'd want some morphine!

They'll be closing the ICU for shift change in a little while. We'll try to grab some dinner and be back with an update after 8pm.