The Bruckners: Tuesday, May 1st: One Week Old!

Finnegan pulling at his cpap!

Christine-
After Ian and I got packed up at home, we headed in the rain to the hospital this morning. After Ian squirted the soap on the floor during our scrub-in, we headed down the hall with our newly packed suitcase to Finn's room. The first thing we noticed was that there wasn't a bright blue light coming through his door! We rushed ourselves in and said good morning to our little boy. He was the feistiest we had ever seen him! He was pulling at his mask, he pulled out his feed tube, and was just overall quite the little punk. Ian and I both realized that Uncle Don's spirit must have visited him to show him the ropes in dealing with hospitals.

His nurse came in to tell us that although rounds haven't happened, his NNP decided to take him off his phototherapy and also took him off the humidity in his bed. We are just overjoyed with his progress! He only had about 2 self-correcting bradies since the early afternoon and he pooped some more! The very good news is that most of his bradies are self-correcting and are not a result of him stopping breathing, but just taking too shallow of breaths. He's still on the level 30 CPAP that they put him on yesterday, but they're concerned about his current mask. The one he has now is causing a little bit of breakdown around the skin on his nose, so they wanted to try to fit him for a bigger mask. Well, the bigger mask is just too big for Finn's little nose and it covers up his eyes. They tried the prongs again, but those don't seem to work in Finn's little nose either. There is another option for them to try that involves a different type of nose prong hooked up to a vent instead of a cpap machine. It would still be used as a cpap, but the type of nasal attachment might fit better for his little nose. The easiest solution to the problem is to have Finn grow, but that might take a little time!

While waiting for rounds, I got to work on some school stuff that I have finally been able to attack. It's weird working on grading assignments and knowing that I won't be back to hand them to the kids. I just keep reminding myself I have a very important kid to take care of at the hospital, and I know that my students are in super good hands!

During diaper changing and temperature taking time, Finn was particularly feisty. Dad decided to have a talk with him about it. This just made my heart melt!

We waited quite a long time for rounds. The start of the month means that doctors change patients, so that usually makes the day a lot longer for everyone. It was worth the wait. Finnegan is doing very well. He will have another chest x-ray tomorrow to check on the position of his PICC line. He's been having quite a few bradies (3/4 are self-correcting), but they'll hopefully slow down or stop as they are testing out his breathing equipment today before deciding to move to the different machine. He's still down in weight, but he's still on his gut priming until Thursday. The hope is that after about 3 days on the normal feeding schedule (which will start on Thursday), he will start picking up some weight. Friday will be his head scan to check for any brain bleeds. We're praying that they don't find a thing.

Getting comfy!

After a late lunch, Ian and Finnegan got some daddy-son bonding time in the form of Kangaroo Care. Finn did fabulously throughout until the end when he gave dad a scare with a brady! They got to snuggle for 2 hours and 10 minutes! :)