In limbo...

Matthew had his eye appointment yesterday and the doctor said that he is still getting worse. His right eye is worse than his left. In his right eye it is considered a stage 3 and when it gets to a stage 3+ then they will perform emergency eye surgery. The doctor said he was surprised that it wasn't there yet. He said not to worry because there is nothing they can do at this point until he reaches the 3+ stage. He did say that it was almost inevitable at this point that he will need the surgery. The doctor also mentioned that even if his eyes did get better rather than worse, he will probably have scarring in his eyes which will result in severe nearsightedness, like a minus ten. This means that Matthew may have a difficult time seeing clearly a foot or so in front of him. He will continue to have eye problems throughout his life as well. Unfortunately, the scarring could also cause damage to the retina later in life and that will have to be monitored regularly to make sure that the retina does not detach, due to the scarring, and cause him to go blind.

He was weighed again last night and is now up to 1704 grams or 3 3/4 pounds. He is starting to retain fluid so some of that weight gain could be part of the fluid retention. The doctors say that he is retaining fluid primarily due to his chronic lung disease and they are giving him lasix again to help his body get rid of the extra fluid. If he continues to gain weight like this he'll be up to four pounds easily by next week. Yeah!

They also increased his feeds again yesterday and he is now getting 34 ml's of breastmilk every 3 hours. So far he seems to be tolerating it and is still pooping and urinating on his own without help.

On Wednesday, they performed a procedure called a hide-a-scan. This is where they injected dye into his system and then they viewed it with a machine to see where the dye is going. The main purpose of this was to see what is going on with his liver, gall bladder and bowels. Since he is still having liver problems they want to make sure his liver has all the necessary components it needs to function properly. I am still waiting for the results. The results may be here by this afternoon, but I won't hold my breath. The next time they draw blood will be on Sunday for more testing. I'll try to find out what they are going to test him for and then let you know when we have the results.

For now, continue to pray for a miracle for his eyes to heal completely and without scarring. Continue to pray for his strength especially in going through all these tests. Please pray that he continues to grow and develop normally and without lasting effects. Pray for us to not start worrying and thinking the worse again, which is very easy to do when these tests are being done on him. Thank you for your prayers and support and the great comments. Even though we may not respond to them, we really do appreciate receiving them. Thanks again.