3/5/11 update

Doctor report: Josh is doing fantastic and is a straight A patient. They are going to drop him to 4 liters per minute of pressure on his vapotherm for 24 hours, and if he passes that, tomorrow they will put him back on a regular nasal canula. If all goes well, then Monday they will have him practice eating from a bottle again.

02/23/11 Update

Joshua is doing awesome! He's been such a little fighter. His treatments are going well, and although they don't get much up from the tube anymore, he is quite the drooler, and get quite a bit out of his mouth. They took his catater out today, and he is off his medicine drips, so now when they give him his pain med and sedation drugs, they do it through his feeding tube. They changed the settings on his vent, and he's still triggering breaths on his own. The nurses would like him to take some bigger breaths though. I'm so proud of him for fighting this yucky virus, and i'm happy he's recovering fast. I love him so much and I can't wait to hold him again!!!! Lets pray and keep our fingers crossed that the tube comes out this weekend!

Day 7

Josh had a good night last night. The doctor took him off his paralytic drug (medicine induced coma). He is still on the ventilator, but heavily sedated so he doesn't pull out his tube, although if he doens't do well or starts to fight, they will put him back on the that drug. His numbers and pressures have stayed pretty steady, and he is kind of moving on his own. He'll move his head, fingers or toes, his knees, and you can see his tongue move a little. Every now and then he'll take his own breath without the help of the ventilator! We are moving in the right direction, but don't know when he'll get to be dismissed from Blank.

Day 6

Josh has had a couple of good days and nights. We are heading in the right direction. He's been receiving antibiotics for some bacterial infections, and they are taking fluid off of him. He is hooked up to a few medicines and does have a cathater in. The doctor is decreasing his pressures on the ventilator slowly each day. Tomorrow there may be a possibility that they may stop his paralytic drug, so lets keep our fingers crossed.

Update 2

Josh is finally showing signs of improvement. The doctor was in earlier today, and said they found a small amount of bacteria in his last blood test that is treatable with antibiotics and said that it was probably the reason his condition worsened so quickly. He is breathing better now and relying less on the ventilator. So...hopefully....we'll see some dramatic improvement over the next few days. Thanks for thinking of us and praying!

Update

As you all probably know, Joshua was hospitalized on Valentine's day for RSV. He's been a super trooper, and he held out as long as he could for breathing on his own. But after so long, a little boy is going to get tired, so they put him on a ventilator to help him breathe which he could be on anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. The secretions in his lungs are hard to come out because they are so thick, so they have to suction him out frequently and his lungs are having a hard time getting the exchanged carbon dioxide out. There hasn't really been any change, although he hasn't hit his peak yet. They've done a daily chest X-Ray to compare each day, and nothing has changed. Today he was given a muscle relaxer to put him down deep into a sleep because when he does get agitated by the ventilator he tries to fight it, so basically he's in a medically induced coma. It's hard as a parent to see your child so sick, with many tubes come out from him, and just laying there sleeping. I miss holding him and hearing him cry. As we know more, I'll "try" to post it on here. So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

7 Weeks Old already

Its been awhile since I've blogged...I apologize. Joshua is now 7 weeks old and has been growing like a weed. Kurt and I think he's around the 8 1/2 to 9 pound range. His 2 month checkup is on February 17th. Newborn clothes are getting too small...yet 3 month outfits are a tad bit big. He's been such a good baby..although we'd like him to develop a night time sleeping pattern. He is getting predictable...getting up around 1:30am-2:30am and then anywhere from 4:30-5:30. He also has his moments when he likes to sleep in his bassinet all night.
This past Monday I went back to work. Dropping Josh off at daycare was very hard....I cried my eyes out, but each day got easier and easier. I look forward to coming home every night and give him lots of affection. Joshua seems to not mind daycare, maybe because he sleeps most of the time. He's going to Angeli Cristiani, which is a church daycare center. The first week of work was pretty good. I set a fairly easy schedule for 2 weeks to get back into the swing of things. I really missed my vision therapy kids.
Not much else is happening. I joined a bike club called CARD (Cyclists Against Reckless Drivers) with the Julies and my friend Paula. When the weather gets nice out, we'll be able to ride together and such. Kurt's still on his BikeIowa team. He hasn't been on the bike much since Joshua has been born, but hopefully he'll get some miles in this winter. He has a big bike race at the end of the month called CIRREM which is 62 miles long. BRR (Bike Ride to Rippey) was this weekend. He and the boys rode from Johnston to Perry, which was 33 miles. I didn't get to participate because I hadn't been on the bike since before Joshua was born, and I'm still recovering from gallbladder surgery, which by the way went okay. I was pretty scared at first, but thank goodness for drugs I guess. I remember getting set up in the OR, the anesthesiologist told me to take a couple breaths of oxygen, and the next thing I know, I'm in the recovery room. Thank goodness we only have one gallbladder. I was really groggy for awhile after surgery, and my stomach hurt really bad. I think I'd rather deal with having a C-Section any day, rather than the stomach ache I had after surgery. Otherwise I really don't know much else.

Riding my trusty steed....oh i mean kitty.

I'm a big boy and I like to swim....in the tub.

Hanging out with Mommy.

Future BikeIowa member.

Sitting on the couch...big boy style.