Steady Progress

It is unbelievable how wonderful Lawson continues to do! He was so sweet today. He got a little bit of a bath, so it was even sweeter to hold him! Honestly, it was wonderful to finally get to hold him, but he really did stink! Daddy held him for about 30 minutes and he was just wide awake and happy the whole time! For a while, they were having a staring contest! :) It was great to see Lawson with Brian and for both of them to be happy. This whole experience has taken quite a toll on us all, especially Brian. So having good news is good for all of us. One of the Nurse Practitioners stopped by to say, "I'm not his NP today, but I just had to stop by and say WOW!!! I just can't believe how well he's doing!"

We had a long chat with Dr. Lenfestey, the attending, today. He was VERY impressed with Lawson's progress. Today is the first day we've seen Dr. Lenfestey since very early in Lawson's life. He said more than once, and in more than one way that Lawson was a very 'unique' and 'special' baby and that they really hadn't dealt with a case like this before. We talked about how the surgery had been the very last resort and ended up being the turning point to success. The doctor pointed out that ALL of the previous surgeries they had done to remove all or part of babies lungs had not turned out as well as Lawson's did. So in that way, he really is unique!

He is continuing to make steady progress. They started his feeds last night and will be steadily increasing them over the next few weeks. Tomorrow Lawson will undergo a 'swallow test' to see if he is ready to begin 'real' feeding. During the test they will give him something to swallow while under the x-ray to check and see if the fluid goes to the right place. If he is ready to swallow, we can begin teaching him to breastfeed tomorrow. I'm sooooooooooooo excited about that! One of the things he has to learn before they can send him home is feeding, so the sooner we start, the sooner he can go home!!

They are weaning him from the pain medications very slowly to prevent withdrawal. He has been on them for so long at such a high dose that he really is addicted to them. There is a scale that the nurses keep to measure his level of withdrawal symptoms. Hopefully he will be able to give them up without too much of a fight.

He is still depending on the nasal cannula for breathing support. We got evidence of that this evening when the tube accidentally pulled loose. As we were transferring him from my arms back to his bed, the tube that carries the air to his nasal cannula pulled loose from the machine. His oxygenation dropped as we were trying to hook it back up and then went back to normal soon after replacing it. Cheri says that's fine since he just had surgery and is showing amazing progress to even have his breathing tube out. She said he'll continue to make progress and soon will not need any support to breathe.

I couldn't get the video to upload, so I'll try the youtube option next, which also takes a while. Stay tuned. I didn't get any videos today, because I was too busy snuggling with my sweet smelling sweetie! I do have a few pics to share though . . .