Off Vapotherm, Plans for Coming Home

Tonight I got back from the hospital and have great news! Roscoe has been taken off of the higher pressure vapotherm and put onto a standard nasal cannula. For comparison, Roscoe started on the vapotherm at 5.0 liters of air per minute at 30% oxygen. Earlier this week he had come down to 2.0 liters of air per minute at 26% oxygen. On the standard nasal cannula, he is receiving 0.1 liters of air per minute at 100% oxygen. The math whizzes in the reading audience will realize that means overall, Roscoe is requiring less oxygen. Here's the calculation below:

   Vapotherm: 2.0 liters air * 26% oxygen = 0.52 liters oxygen (per minute)

   Standard Cannula: 0.1 liters air * 100% oxygen = 0.1 liters oxygen (per minute)

This is a 5X reduction to the oxygen being delivered to Roscoe, plus it's more comfortable to him since it's at a lower pressure. The doctors told us that Roscoe will probably come home on an oxygen tank but that he'll hopefully come home in a few weeks. The only remaining hold-ups before he comes home are:

1. Weight Gain
   Roscoe is well past the 5lb requirement for coming home, but he's still not gaining weight fast enough to catch up with where he would have been if he was born in December (his gestational age). The doctors are increasing the calories in the milk he's eating to try and get him to gain more. He's currently about 6lb 10oz and 19" long.
2. Hernia Surgery
   We haven't posted any pictures of it, but Roscoe has a very large hernia just above his groin that was there when he was born and has slowly gotten larger. It is mildly uncomfortable for him, but mostly it's just cosmetically troubling. Each time he squirms or grunts, it pushes his intestines out and puffs up the area. The doctors had planned to wait until a week or two before he goes home to surgically repair it (they said it is a relatively simple surgery). They hope to do the surgery within the next week. If Roscoe doesn't recover normally from the surgery, then it would delay him coming home. He recovered fine from his pyloric stenosis surgery, so we are hoping he'll do the same here.

Not much to else to say, but we are very excited! Here's a video of Roscoe squirming around and looking happy: