Home again

We were discharged today, but couldn't bring ourselves to leave until around six this evening. Leaving the hospital is really tough for a number of reasons. The people are so sweet and amazing. The care is extraordinary. There is so little fear because you know that if anything goes wrong you'll be okay -- everyone there is concentrating on making sure you're okay. Cole is right upstairs and you can see him any time!

It's tough to be home. Of course, there are lots of great things about being home. There's the comfort of our bed, and our couch. There are TV channels that we can control. There is better food (although we can't just ring up room service and have them deliver). I have to say though; we came home to a nice clean house because Bunny is the most amazing woman on earth, and this morning she came over and cleaned the place up. Frankly, I don't think it's ever been as nice and tidy as it is now. Thank you Bunny, you are a superstar! Seriously.

We went back to the NICU tonight at like 10:00 to say good night to Cole and see how he's doing. Interestingly, they switched him to a different kind of CPAP (the crazy nostril hat machine) that goes right up his nose and down his throat a little. I'll give you a poorly paraphrased explanation: Cole is still having more spells than they're comfortable with. The good thing though, is that he regulates them himself; he no longer needs a Neonatal CPR ninja (like myself) to come to his rescue. Cool right? But not cool enough, I guess. Now, Cole likes to sleep with his mouth open. WIDE open. They're thinking that this was decreasing the pressure the CPAP was pressing into his lungs, so if they bypass that portion of his breathing system, the CPAP will be more effective, therefore reducing his spells. I guess tomorrow we'll see if their genius paid off.

One of the good things about this new CPAP, though I imagine it is quite uncomfortable for our little guy here, is that it is much more flattering. It is so great to see Cole's little head.



In other news, Cole received his first blood transfusion this afternoon. Don't worry, this is no big deal. All preemies require blood transfusions because they don't have enough bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. With all the testing the doctors do, the preemies lose enough blood which they can't replace themselves that they require transfusions. Relax, it's not like the doctors are pulling pints of blood from our man here, it's just that even if they take just 5 drops, his circulatory system is so teeny that those 5 drops are like 30% of his entire supply. Make sense? So yeah, I think the consent form to allow blood transfusions was one of the first I signed where I had to put "father" in the relationship box. Pretty intense! At multiple levels!