Welcome to the machine

Ethan has a new machine. Yesterday they added the transcutaneous co2 monitor. (TCM) It’s a has a little black thingie that attaches to his tummy. It heats up the skin (and leaves temporary little red dots) so somehow it can read his co2 levels. It’s not the most accurate thing, but it can show trends without pricking his heels! Yeah! We can live with some temporary dots since they don’t hurt.

The first plan of attack with this thing is to see if all of his breathing treatments are really doing anything for his co2 levels. They are charting the number before, after, and 2 hours after each treatment and we’ll see if there are any changes. If we can reduce these treatments hopefully he won’t be so irritable (i.e. last weekend) and jittery. Chris calls it his ‘jimmy leg’ when his little leg just starts to shake.

Next they will do the same thing with the heliox to see if it is really helping. This machine is not perfect, but if it helps us systematically rule stuff out I think it is better than gold!

Ethan had a great day today. He was a little fussy in the am today. Jenn was holding him when I got there at 10:30. Kristy, OT, was there to observe his 11:30 finger feeding/breast feeding. (boy that does look funny when you write it!). He loved the milk, but was fussy because he was looking for more. Kristy was very happy with the improvement in his suck. Yahoo! He’s sometimes able to suck some milk out of the tube even when I’m not pushing the plunger. Still not much success in extracting milk at breast, but maybe soon. I’ve been pumping so as to not drown him, so who knows. He took a nap afterwards. Yeah!! We gave him more milk the next feeding and he was a happy boy. He relaxed and played and was calm for hours. His dinner was the same relaxing experience. He was down for the count after that one, and slept until his next feeding. Poor guy needs the rest!

Dr. Nau wants to start testing him on the bottle again in the next few days. (As always, based on how Ethan is doing.) We may do a swallow study, but maybe not if he does well. It makes me nervous that he might aspirate, but then I’m sure he will do a great job too. We’ll see how it goes.

Alli, by the way, is so fun right now. She plays with her big, green, crinkly dog (the pink puppy is now passé) and is able to grab it and bring it to her mouth. She’s playing with rattles and batting at toys. That crazy mobile is still the absolute favorite of both kids. We had to buy a second one for the nicu! She is really cooing now. It is so cute! Even her expressive cries are cute. Sometimes she sounds like she is saying a whole sentence when she is crying. The other day the nurse said, “that almost sounded like ‘where is daddy’”. How funny. Oh yes, and she passed her nicu follow up appointment with flying colors. She’s right on track for her adjusted age of almost 3 months.