This morning Matthew pulled out his own ventilator tube. I guess he thought he had enough of that! Normally when you come off the ventilator, the next step is to go onto CPAP, however, this time they did not want to put him back on CPAP because of the amount of air that is forced into him with this machine. They thought it would introduce more air into his stomach and intestines and since he was already having problems with that, they didn't want to aggravate it more. So, instead they put him on the nasal cannula at 2 liters per minute at room air (21 % oxygen) and he was doing fine. In fact his oxygen saturation was in the low to mid 90's, with occasionally hitting the 100% mark. He may get too tired being on the cannula, so they may have no choice but to put him back on CPAP. But once they do, I am sure they are going to try sprinting him between CPAP and cannula until he can handle being on the cannula alone.
The shocking thing that happened today was that they started feeding him again. They started out at 10 ml's every 3 hours. So what is so shocking about that? Well, when they first started to feed him they decided to give it to him in a bottle for the first time ever. He actually sucked on the bottle and took 5 of the 10 ml's before it tired him out. They said he was still uncoordinated in sucking, swallowing and breathing at the same time, but he will get better as time goes on. This means that I will probably be able to put him to the breast and actually feed him sometime soon! YEAH!!! I am very excited, yet at the same time, I am skeptical about them starting everything back up again so soon.
When they weighed him last night, he was weighing in at 4 lbs 5 ounces, so he was still growing even though he was on the IV nutrition.
Please keep praying that he does not have any setbacks and that his intestines have healed completely. Please keep praying that the nurses and doctors make the right decisions with him. Pray for his eye exam tomorrow and that he doesn't crash again. Praise God for the healing He's done over the last few days and for giving us the strength and peace to make it through this.
