4 weeks old today

Drew's hematoma/seroma was aspirated yesterday. They got about 60 cc's of old blood and it was still quite large. It looks like it's growing again. *sigh* Just something to worry about; it will probably be drained every so often but not heal completly for a while. He's still not able to move around and staying on his back just doesn't help.

His chest tube output was over 1800 cc's this afternoon. But there is promising news on another note...his respiration rate on the vent is still being dropped by 1 breath per minute every other hour. He was down to 26 bpm this afternoon. He's breathing over the vent and hovers around 35-40 bpm when he's not agitated. All of his blood gasses have been great so the weaning seems to be going well. One nurse said that they usually take them off the vent when it gets down to 5 bpm. We'll see what happens but his rate has never been this low before (I think, it's hard to remember without looking at my journal).

Drew had kind of a scary episode this afternoon while we were there (we being me, Elizabeth and Grandmama). The respiratory tech was vibrating his chest to loosen any mucous and his heartrate went down fast; all the way into the 50s. As soon as she stopped, it went back up into the 110s, maybe even higher but we just left at that point so he wouldn't become more agitated. Their heart rate generally increases when this is done so what happened is a bit strange. I hope to have an explanation for that after tonight's visit since we hurried out (mainly due to E. being a normal 2 year old and wanting to tug on Drew's arm).

He's showing no signs that the pulmonary hypertension is returning, which is WONDERFUL. He's just kind of resting and holding steady right now. He's still quite swollen though.

Here are some 4 week birthday pictures.

Drew getting some Daddy loving:



He likes getting flavored lip stuff (it's so cute, he'll lick his lips and make a "yummy" face):



First time covered up with a blanket (thanks Chelsea, he likes the way it feels):