Improvements and Weight Gain

Roscoe had a much better day yesterday, but still isn't back to normal. The good news was that when Alisha came in the morning, his personality had mostly returned; he was happy and playful like usual. The nurse who had him Thursday and Friday said she noticed a huge difference in his energy level on Friday. His heart rate and breathing rate were slightly less, but they were still much higher than usual. The doctors did another x-ray and found moderate negative changes from yesterday (added patches of poorly functioning lung tissue), which they attributed to the added pressure of the BiPAP machine.

The pulmonologist lowered Roscoe's breathing support pressure from 7L/min to 5L/min, because we first noticed the heavy breathing when he went from 6L/min to 7L/min this past Tuesday. Unfortunately, Roscoe did vomit/spit up last night again. I spoke with the doctor and she was confident it was likely a residual effect of his lungs recovering.

In the videos below he was playing with us in his little virtual jungle gym of sound, toys, and sights. We were trying to get his right arm flopping back and forth how he sometimes does when he gets a good hold on something:

I just realized that we haven't posted his weight in a while, which is a shame because he's been steadily gaining weight since they started using his feeding tube to standardize the amount he's taking in. Here has been his weight at the past few weigh-ins:
   May 16: 9lb 3.4oz
   May 19: 9lb 7.1oz
   May 21: 9lb 11.7oz
   May 23: 9lb 14.6oz

This is a very good trend for Roscoe to be on, because historically for his entire life he's gained a little over one pound each month. With this trend, he'll roughly gain 2-3 pounds in a month! As he puts on weight, he will gain and store more energy, which will support his lungs and give him reserve oxygen when he needs it.

 

Now that he's neared the 10lb mark he has graduated from "newborn" diapers to "size 1". Looking around at the constant growth God affords the trees, bushes, and even weeds around us, I never knew it would be such a concerted effort to get a baby to grow, but God has blessed him.