No Direction

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all having a great weekend so far. It's supposed to snow/ice again today in New Hampshire. The last few weeks seem like we get hit with another wave of weather every 3 or 4 days maximum. While the snow is fun, and great to look at, I must admit that not being able to see an intersection due to 6 foot snow banks makes my job a bit more difficult.

I'm home with Kevin today, and Tina just went down to spend the day with Ethan before the weather starts up again this evening. The drive to Boston definitely wears on us this time of the year. Between the weather, Bruins, or Celtics home games, there's a pretty good chance our drive time doubles going down there any night during the week. I was lucky enough to be able to work from the hospital most of Friday, so I got to spend lots of quality time with Ethan. He looks so good now, and is starting to show some growth again.

Yesterday he tried applesauce for the first time. He's gone back and forth with starting bottle feeds, but has shown some aversion to it. Since he hasn't taken any food orally for the first 6 months of his life, we will have to work with occupational therapy and the feeding team at the hospital to try and get him tasting different things. We thought he was going to have his Bronchoscopy this week. However, due to time constraints in the OR, they've postponed it until this Friday. Hopefully then they will be able to give us a better idea of when he might get to come home.

They are more and more convinced that he doesn't need to remain in the NICU much longer. We've talked to them about a step-down rehabilitation center which would provide a lower risk of infection for him, and a better chance for us to learn how to care for him as long as he has the trach tube in. The downside to this would be that the only place equipped to handle his trach is still in Boston. Now that they have the fluid on his lung under control, they want to continue to ween him off the pressure support.

Kevin is doing great. He got over his respiratory infection, and is sleeping much better again. It's so great to see his smiles when I come home from work. In a very stressful situation, he helps keep me sane. Speak of the devil, he is just waking up from a nap so I need to cut this short.

Have a great weekend, and be safe out in the winter month. We love you all.

Ryan, Tina, Ethan, and Kevin