Swimming Backwards

Well, it seems like we are having more setbacks than steps forward, and it's hard to keep up morale. We got another phone call from Doctor Doom today. She said that his breathing was still really bad and that he de-stated every time she walked by. (He still is having a hard time being touched, and d-stats a lot when the doctors and nurses start working on him.) His belly was swollen, firm, and she could see his veins through it. He was put back on the bubble Cpap today. I'm hoping that he will keep it bubbling this time because every time we show up, he's not bubbling and we end up holding it down out whole visit. As soon as we let go, he stops bubbling. The doctor however said that it needs to be bubbling the whole time in order for him to be getting what he needs which is frustrating because nobody but us seems to be too concerned with making him bubble.

His blood and urine tests came back also, and he still has the infection that he had last week which is concerning because he's already been on antibiotics for a week. They are continuing those two and adding a third. The doctor also decided not to feed him all day (poor guy!) to stop the flow through his intestines to see if that'll help him empty out the extra air that's in there as well as anything else that's in there.

Before she stopped his food, he had his second bottle feeding, and he sucked the whole thing down in 15 minutes. I wish we had known about it before hand though so that we could have been there for it. I feel like we're missing out on so many things because we're so far away. We weren't notified of when his first bath would be, or his first feeding, and so we missed both of those milestones.

After I had a good cry in the NICU waiting room with Mitch, I pulled myself together and went in to sit with Witten for a couple of hours. We couldn't hold him today of course, but Mitch held his nook in his mouth and I held his hand. He was going to town on the nook, and started crying there near the end because he was already so hungry. It was hard to see him so upset and hungry and know that I had food for him that I wasn't allowed to give him. While I was holding my hand, he kept squeezing really hard and the nurse said that was a very good sign because it meant that he wasn't too sick and that he was still feeling well. She said that as long as he's moving around and fighting, he's in good shape. Well, he's definitely still fighting! They had his arms kind of tied down so that he couldn't rip his Cpap out. (It sounds much worse than it actually was. He could still move them, he just couldn't get them up to his face.)

By the time we left his bedside, I felt much better about his situation.