They took him off the ventilator this afternoon at about 2:00pm. We went up to say hello at about 7:00pm, and he was still off the ventilator. Holy crap! Look at him go! Look at him breathe using his very own lungs!
I'd like to temper this with the possibility that they'll put him back on the ventilator at some point - they often go back and forth experimenting with what the baby is capable of. At the moment though, he's totally kicking ass.
The big hat that you're looking at is a different kind of breathing device; it just has two little prongs going into his nostrils which help keep his lungs inflated a bit. I think it's also quite stylish. Another of the benefits of Cole being off the ventilator is that now we can hear his voice. He makes the sweetest little squeaky cries! Meow!
The scary thing about being off the ventilator is that he will have more frequent Spells. A Spell is when he forgets to breathe. One of the nurses explained to us that because the baby is so young, the part of his brain that controls his breathing hasn't fully developed yet; so it's normal that he just stops breathing sometimes. Seeing this happen is scary as hell, but the nurses are super calm about it. They give him a little jiggle and he wakes up and his heart rate goes back up. Phew!
At one point he was crying, and I was comforting him and he stopped crying, and I was feeling all fatherly and like an effective soothing force, and then I took my hand away, and he was still like a statue. BREATHE!! I tickled his arm. And he started breathing. I am totally an infant CPR ninja.
2 comments:
You are indeed a hat jiggling infant CPR ninja.
I wish my hat would breathe for me. I have to do everything around here.
You go ninja dad!
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