Day 107. It's a waiting game...

I am so over going to the hospital each day! It has been AGES!!!! I am also getting increasingly frustrated with having no plan. (I know, live in the moment, stop trying to plan.) I really should stop asking the staff so many questions, because it feels like every doctor/nurse I speak to has a different opinion. Particularly around when Vinnie will be able to go home.

I am really just frustrated at myself for thinking this way though. I know it isn't their fault and they don't possess physic powers... it is all dependant on how Vinnie's lungs improve and nobody can speed up that process. I feel like having an adult sized tantrum. It is probably going to happen any day now...

Looking on the positive side of things, Vinnie is making progress, albeit slowly. (I sound like such a pushy parent already.) Last night he had another oximeter run to show how he is doing on the current setting of 750mls of oxygen. It was looking good so they are going to try him on 500mls tomorrow. We are really hoping that he copes with this as on Wednesday they will then be starting to make some decisions around whether he is ready to go home, or on to Starship Childrens Hospital. If he copes with 500mls it is highly likely he will be sent home on this amount. If he needs more than this, off to Starship we go.

Although a trip to Starship wouldn't be the end of the world, and it would only be for a short while (again, no one can really say how long, except that it won't be forever!), I am still not excited about the idea. Rather than being in an intensive care ward (with 24/7 care from the nursing staff) he would be in a ward with me looking after him full time and nurses checking in throughout the day. Although I'm excited about the idea of spending all my time with Vinnie, I would much rather be doing this at home.... with the help and company of my husband.

Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see how he does tomorrow night. Vinnie is doing much better with his feeding though and seems to have gotten over his aversion to having things in his mouth... except the dummy. You know that expression 'spits the dummy'? Well, Vinnie does that, literally, with his dummy. He used to love it, but now he gags on it and spits it out.

On Friday afternoon we went down to radiology in Starship (Vinnie's first trip away from the 9th floor!) so Vinnie could have a videofluoroscopy (a what?!!). This is basically a swallow test they do to ensure that babies aren't aspirating liquid in to the airway/lungs when they swallow. It involved Vinnie having to drink this white chalky liquid called barium which shows up on the xray. It is really sweet and he absolutely devoured the stuff... swallowed 20mls in only a couple of minutes. He doesn't seem to enjoy breast milk that much! Kids... honestly, no thanks at all.

The good news is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way he swallows, and he is going to get this whole feeding thing one day. Vinnie will have to go home with a long term nasogastric feeding tube so we can top him up after a bottle/breast feed as he gets tired really easily still and falls asleep about 15 minutes in to a feed. Cam and I had lessons in inserting one of these tubes last weekend. I'm starting to feel like a nurse with all the care duties we are doing for Vinnie.

On Sunday night I was clipping Vinnie's fingernails (while he was sleeping like an angel) and I accidentally nicked the skin on his thumb. I felt like the worst mum in the world! I was crying, he was crying, the nurse was trying to console us both. To make matters worse, I called Cam to tell him what I'd done and he was so nice to me. "Don't worry honey, it won't be the last time you hurt him. He isn't going to remember this". Sometime last year Cam was clipping Olive's (the naughty Maltese mongrel) claws and he cut one too short and made her cry and bleed. I wasn't very nice to him about it... so yes, I felt like the worlds worst wife as well.

That is all our big news for the week. Vinnie is looking super cute at the moment and is making little chitter chatter baby noises. He looks like he is going to crack a smile any day now :-)