Day #17

This has been a really good day. My girl friend came and visited me for awhile today and I can't thank her enough. I really needed the "girl time". I also spent most of the day sleeping...well, let me restate that. I still go up every three hours to pump but I decided I wasn't getting out of bed until noon. I feel very refreshed. I really needed the rest. I went and checked the mail today and to my surprise there was a large envelope from my English instructor. At first I thought that she might have sent me back some work I had turned into her. I opened it up and there was a card for Trey signed by my entire class and a pop up book. It really touched me that they went though the trouble to do something so nice. As I read the congrats and well wishes I thought to myself how lucky I was to have such support and people praying for our little monkey. BTW, I have taken to calling him little monkey because his arms are longer then he is tall...LOL.

The doctors call everyday around 10am or 11am and today wasn't any different. I really like getting the daily updates from the doctors. It helps keep me informed and they really make me feel like I am part of the process in decision making. So, today they let me know that they had decided to increase Trey's caffeine. His A&B episodes haven't stopped but they haven't increased. The increase in caffeine seems to have decreased the A&B episodes. If they don't stop they will have to start doing some different things. Basically, that mean because they don't know why they haven't stopped they have to treat anything that could cause them. 1st,Trey is slightly anemic. This is not uncommon for preemies but this would require a blood transfusion and that would be the first thing they do...if needed. The last thing would be to start him on some antibiotics in the event that he might have an infection that isn't being picked up. The antibiotics have some side effects. The most problematic is hearing loss. I told the doctor that the antibiotics would need to be a last resort and I want to know the statistics on hearing loss for preemies that are given the antibiotic.

Trey is still gaining weight and his feeds have been increased from 16mls every 2 hours to 17mls every 2 hours. Once he reaches the maximum of 20mls his feeds will go from every 2 hours to every 3.