No Nitrous No Problems: Days 70-74

Sleeping cutie on his new elephant sheets

This past weekend has been a big one for our little man.  After his eye surgery on Thursday, the doctors turned their attention to continuing the wean on Benton's nitrous.  Right before the eye surgery the doctors had made the call to wean his nitrous from 4 to 3, but during the surgery they decided to knock his nitrous back up to 4 to help him through the procedure.  Over the weekend they continued to wean Benton's nitrous and by Sunday he was off the nitrous!  This was huge news because Benton had been on nitrous for over a month and usually the doctors like to use nitrous for just a few days.  The fact that Benton was finally able to wean off the nitrous made us ecstatic and is hopefully an indication that he is truly turning a corner.

In addition, the doctors have been weaning Benton's ventilator pressures from 33 to 31 to 30 to 29.  Apparently this was a little too much too quickly for Benton in light of the fact that the nitrous was gone, because as soon as the ventilator pressures went down past 30 Benton started to require 100% oxygen again.  For at least two days Benton required 100% oxygen and every time this happens my nerves stand on end!  The doctors decided to bump his ventilator pressures back up to 31 and today Benton has been requiring a bit less oxygen again (only 80%).  What a relief!

Relaxing in his isolette

Benton's feedings have been going pretty well and he has worked his way up to 4ml every 4 hours.   In order to check how Benton is tolerating his feeds the nurses check his residuals at each "cares" to see if any milk has still not been digested by his stomach.  Basically the nurse uses Benton's feeding tube to pull back on his stomach juices and see if any leftover milk hasn't been digested.  A few times Benton has had some pretty substantial residuals, but overall he has been doing great.  As a result of his residuals, today the doctors changed his feeds to continuous feedings of 1.5ml per hour (the equivalent of 6ml every 4 hours).  This means he will get a continuous drip of milk into his belly rather than a big meal every 4 hours.  This is quite a big boy move for Benton and we are psyched to see Benton progressing further in his feeds.

Breast milk continuous feed

Since Benton is now holding his own temperature in his isolette he no longer needs to be naked and just wearing a diaper, but can actually be swaddled and potentially wear clothes.  Needless to say hearing this information made me super excited!  After two and a half months I could finally buy something for my little man that he could actually wear and decorate his digs.  Over the weekend my mom and I went shopping to get Benton some receiving blankets and his very first outfit.  As you can see in the pictures we had quite the time and Benton now has blankets with firetrucks, police cars, elephants, giraffes, polka dots and blue stripes.  The nurses say with Benton just starting his continuous feeds they don't want him to wear clothes just yet but we can swaddle him in different blankets on a daily basis.  Once he gets to wear his first outfit I will post it here...until then its a surprise.

Cutie looking out with his brand-new gingham sheets and firetruck blanket!

Today, the opthamologist came back to check on Benton's eyes for the first time since surgery.  Ever since the surgery Benton has been opening up his eyes a lot more and it seems like he is tracking movement a bit better, so we were definitely hopeful going into today's checkup.  Well the opthamologist checked out Benton's eyes and gave us a double thumbs up!  She was very happy with Benton's progress even though its only been 5 days since surgery.  The doctor said all of the haziness in his right eye is gone and it must have been associated with the ROP rather than a retinal detachment or cataracts.  In addition, his advanced Stage 3 ROP with plus disease has improved slightly.  As the doctor put it "his eyes are now quiet Stage 3 ROP and the swelling of his vessels has gone down".  This was great news!  The retinal specialist had said it was unlikely we would see any real change for the first checkup so this much improvement was definitely good.  We will continue hoping to see further improvement in the next few checkups and hopefully by next week it will no longer be Stage 3 ROP.  The opthamologist was also happy because now that his eye haziness has disappeared the doctors will have a better view of his eyes in case they need to do further laser surgery to help improve his eyesight.

Eyes wide open

All of this news has definitely been a whirlwind.  With each piece of good news we get more hopeful for a happy ending.  Tomorrow Benton gets another echocardiogram to check on his heart and we will continue to hope for good news.  Please continue to keep our son in your thoughts and prayers. We are praying that his lungs get stronger each day and one day he goes off the ventilator, that his heart gets stronger and loses any remaining pulmonary hypertension, that his ROP goes away and he retains his sight, that his immune system stays strong and keeps away any infection, that his feeds continue to go well, and that Benton poops since he hasn't pooped in a week.

Sushi-themed 9 week birthday sign!

MacGyver-themed 10 week birthday sign!