3 Blessings From Heaven: Hospital Updates

A Little Boy and His Daddy!!

Look how well I can sit up!! Yes friends, this is a new accomplishment. No, we're not perfect and he still needs support after a few seconds, but this is new, I'm talking, yesterday, new!!

Not to mention, look at how GREAT this picture turned out!

It's 8:00a.m. and I am currently sitting on a cot looking at my husband eating our breakfast tray and Malachi playing with his favorite plastic keys, crying everytime the mobile goes off. We've just had out room cleaned, a breathing treatment done, our diaper changed and talked to Lolli and Pop to update them about our night. And THAT was all in the last 10 minutes...WHEW, I'm already tired.

The last few days have been pretty trying, but, we have also found encouragement every once in a while. Malachi's O2 Sats have been around 93-95% for the last day or so, so we may start weaning him off of his breathing treatments!! (YEA!!) He sounds great other than a cough, but, as I understand, that'll stick around for QUITE some time probably.

On the bright side, yesterday morning, Dr. Young stopped by and gave us what I consider to be decent news. We've started back on Nutramigen and baby food! Malachi loves to eat!! I'll try to post a video of him eating with Lolli yesterday morning. He's keeping everything down, he's just not gaining weight as quickly as we would like for him to. In fact, his body is using everything it's taking in just to keep functioning. So, we're feeding him EVERY 2 HOURS. It's like he's a newborn. AND, to top it off, he is having a difficult time maintaining his body temperature. Friday night, it dropped down to 97.1. Dr. Young explained that his body is using all the calories it gets to keep his temperature up and if he goes much more than 2-3 hours, the calories are used, and the body goes for fat cells to keep warm. Unfortunately, Malachi has NO fat cells, so the temperature drops. So, for the first time since he was probably 2 months old, he wore a hat to bed, got swaddled up with one furry blanket and covered up with another. He slept well, until, that is, the Respiratory therapist came in and hacked him off for waking him up!!

We're REALLY hoping that at his 9 o'clock weigh in, he'll have gained some pretty serious weight. I doubt it, but that's what needs to happen. **Okay, it's now 9:45 and I'm just now getting around to finishing this. He didn't gain, but he didn't lose. ** I'm not sure when Dr. Young is considering letting us go home, but I know that he, Dr. Feist and Dr. Higgins (our specialists in Lubbock) are keeping a very close watch and are communicating several times a day about how Malachi's doing. I bet they're going to want him to gain some SERIOUS weight before we get to go home. ?????

So, we're hangin' at BSA some more today. The nurses have been wonderful and I'm glad that we're here. Malachi has turned a corner, at least temporarily, and we're praying very hard that he will continue to improve and hopefully we'll be able to have Christmas with family!!

Looking at his balloon from Lolli and Pop!!