Bath Time: Day 95

Cutie patootie

Tuesday was a new milestone in Benton's life...his first bath from Mommy.  It was such a fun experience to participate in such a normal activity in his life.  The nurse helped me to set up his bath which is more like a sponge bath than getting fully submerged in water.  We set up an absorbent cloth under Benton and then got wash clothes, warm water and some lavender scented lotion then we took off Benton's leads and his pulse oximeter.  It's both scary and wonderful to see Benton without his monitoring leads and wires...scary because it can be hard to tell how he is oxygenating but awesome because he looks so normal without all the wires!  Using the wash clothes we sponged him down and boy did Benton get into the bath.  He was super interactive during bath time and it was such a fun first!

Getting settled after bath time with mommy!

During his bath we avoided his head because he had had an IV placed there earlier in the day to administer his steroid treatment which will hopefully get him off the ventilator.  Walking in to the NICU and seeing an IV sticking out your son's head is jarring to say the very least, but in addition to the IV Benton also was wearing a bandage over his eyes due to his latest eye exam.   Seeing so many bandages on my beautiful baby truly upset me and my emotions go the best of me choking me up and making the tears well in my eyes.  Luckily, the results of the eye exam were positive and the opthomologist said that his eyes looked terrific with his ROP continuing to regress. 

Benton with his bandages and IV placed in his head

Now that Benton has officially started the DART protocol (i.e. the steroid treatment) we are hoping to see improvement in his ventilator settings and in his oxygen requirements.  On this first day Benton's oxygen requirement dropped from 80% to 60% and this was a result of both an additional dose of lasix (diuretic) and the steroids.  This small improvement gives us hope and we have to just keep praying for his lungs to improve so he can get off the ventilator in the coming weeks.  Please send you thoughts and prayers to our little fighter!!!