Look Ma, No Prongs

It has been an eventful week around here. AJ had his nasal cannula prongs removed on Monday afternoon and he hasn't looked back. This was a remarkable improvement since the last time they tried to take it away.

Here are some before and after images:

Nasal Prongs In

Nasal Prongs Out (and a very pronounced double chin)

The nurses keep correcting us when we refer to him as little, he is huge compared to where he was and compared to the other babies that he holds seniority over. They all comment on his double chin when they come in his room.

He has started to have more and more awake periods. Physical therapy came to work with him the other day and one of the nurses read the clinical note they left in his chart which said that he met two of their three criteria: 1) maintaining an alert state for 3 minutes; and 2) tolerating their handling of him. He doesn't meet criteria with the shaping of his shoulders. They want them to curve in to decrease the work effort of his lungs and he prefers to have them flat against the mattress. We were told that all NICU babies fail that one. We laughed at criteria #1 - not sure either of us would pass that one right now. He had his third eye exam yesterday and his eyes are maturing appropriately. They will do one more exam in two weeks before declaring victory.

Here is a picture where he found his thumb. Looks like he might be taking after his sister on that.

Not to be outdone by her brother's good news on the respiratory front, KD developed her own respiratory problems this week thanks to a very nasty and virulent form of croup going around. She has never had problems with wheezing but on Wednesday it kept getting worse and peaked with yet another trip to the urgent care on Wednesday night. The pediatrician gave her a ten minute trial of nebulized albuterol and said if it didn't work, then it was most definitely croup and would require steroids...5 days of steroids it is. We hope she starts to feel better very soon and that the virus is out of our house well before AJ comes home.

Hope you all have a great weekend.