12/02-12/11/10

:)

Omi has been doing really good the past week or so. 
A lot of lab work, and more chemistry lessons, but the long and short is that he's been making noticeable progress.

His feedings have been going really well. He's been tolerating them and pooping like crazy. Just ask his nurses. He pooped on one the other day, then basically ruined his incubator with what can only be described as "an epic blowout".
They keep increasing the amount he's eating, and he's been doing great with it. He had a blood sugar issue for a little bit, so they altered his feeding schedule to where he is fed non stop to even it out. It's been working. He's just over 4lbs now.
They had been feeding him and giving him supplements through what they call a PIC line since he was born. It's a line that has been in his arm and runs all the way to his chest. They can basically leave it in as long as they want and it has saved him from being stuck literally a couple hundred times. They have gone so far down on what he needs through this line that they are planning on taking it out within the next couple days. This is going to be a huge step for him.

He's still on the ventilator, but his need for it has slowly been decreasing. It gets really complicated exactly how they ventilate him, but he's in a mode right now that they use for weening him off of it, and he has been responding positively. 
One of his Doctors looked at an x-ray the other day and was very surprised to see that he has no heavy damage to his lungs from the vent, and that he sees no sign of permanent damage. Basically, Omi will grow out of it and his lungs should be completely normal.
So if things keep trending in this direction, we should get to see what he looks like without a tube down his throat and a plastic stick taped to his face soon. I'm sure he will like that.
He obviously thinks he should be off the vent, cause he managed to pull out his tube out the other day. Want to see ten serious people show up quickly in the NICU? Have a kid pull his tube.
According to eyewitness accounts, as soon as it came out, he began to sing Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye.
Seriously though, we're pretty interested to see what he sounds like. I guess it will take him about a week to get his vocal cords going once the vent is gone.

His skin stopped peeling and looks good. He has a few liver issues that make him look bronze, so when he was peeling the joke was us asking the nurses who took him to the beach while we were at work. Nobody fessed, but I did find some sand between his toes. I'll just assume they had fun.

So, things are going great for the little guy right now. Given where we came from at the beginning, we really couldn't ask for more. 
He was really sick for a long time, but his Doc told us last night that there is no reason to think that we won't be able to take him home. Granted, we don't know exactly when that will be, but it's nice to hear. 
His Nurse Practitioner told me today that he's the toughest kid in the NICU. Also nice to hear.

He's had a really hard road, but managed to overcome everything that's been thrown at him so far. He was the smallest and sickest baby there for a long time, which is not exactly the title anybody wants. 
We've seen a lot of families come and go since we've been there. You hear about babies that are already off the vent two days after they're born, go right to feeding and start making plans to go home. It puts it all in perspective to watch it every day and not only realize how sick he really was, but how far he's come as well. 

I don't want to discredit the struggles of the other babies in the unit, but we can tell that Omi has become a favorite. He's been there a while and been through a lot. People have come to know him and us pretty well. There are a lot of the staff that we consider friends now. A super nice bunch of dedicated, smart and caring people that love what they do. We can't say enough nice things about them. 
The nurses are pretty attached to him and argue over who gets him when they assign duties for the shifts. Aside of all the friends and family rooting him on, (you guys have all been great by the way, thank you) He has a huge cheering section of Doctors, Nurses, Specialists and even the people we see at the Hospital every day that don't work in the NICU.
Everybody loves them some Omi, and do all they can to help him.

Anyway, the good news keeps coming and far outweighs the bad. I think barring any unforeseeable things that might jump up, the worst part is probably behind him.

Go Omi.