Weight- 710 grams (1lb 9 oz boys and girls...moving on up!)
Feeds- Starting with the fortified breast milk- Bring on the calories!
Oxygen- Minimal settings on the ventilator
Disposition- CRAZY!
Well, its been an interesting couple of days with Prudence. And oddly even though we got some set back kind of news, we are pretty upbeat about a lot of things going on.
The biggest set back is that Prudence is being treated for pneumonia. She has a bacteria called serratia growing in her trachea. They only saw trace amounts but it has now grown back positive on two cultures and since she failed her extubation on Thursday, they are counting her as a ventilator associated pneumonia and treating her with antibiotics. And praise God the cultures came back showing that the bacteria was very easily treated by one antibiotic. So if you are gonna have pneumonia, this is the way to do it.
She is on minimal ventilator settings. And this fantastic respiratory therapist sat down with me today and explained everything on Prudence and just exactly how great she is actually doing.
Phew.... this momma can wipe the sweat from her brow now.
Next, they are adding fortifiers to my breast milk (which is fully in and we have a quite the stock pile for miss Prudence already) to add in extra calories to her diet. Our big goal now is 2lbs. We were told by our favorite NICU momma (she has had Prudence more often than not lately) that 2lbs is the point where a lot of babies start building up more strength and doing better. Just getting there is the hard part. We celebrate every gram she is gaining.
Mostly, she just looks stronger. Healthier. She is as spunky as ever and actually fights off the people working on her like "LEAVE ME ALONE I WAS SLEEPING"....its like I gave birth to a mini emo 16 year old.
Another couple of blessings worth mentioning. Juan has some pretty awesome people he works with. Superhero awesome. On Friday we got the first blessing of an extremely generous "love offering" in the name of Prudence Perez. We were pretty floored by the love people showed us. Next, Juan met a physician assistant at work on Friday. This lovely lady cooked us a meal on Sunday that was pretty spectacular. We never knew how kind and loving people can be until now.
Sickness and germs have become the new obsession for us outside the NICU. Especially since Juan got sick. We are not at all intense about infection control in our home usually. We refuse to put antibacterial soap in our containers. We don't avoid people just because they are sick. Actually, we are pretty pro-buildyourimmunesystemthroughexposure kind of people. We vaccinate. We almost always hate antibiotics unless there is an actual infection- your sinus infection doesn't count you are just overreacting to something that will clear up on its own. You get the idea.
This year....mmmm not so much the same atmosphere.
We have Purell in every room. Kleenex's are hanging out pretty close at hand. We are revoking our plans to go to the Dixie Classic Fair now because of the germiness. Seriously yucky there. We are even doing a furlough from church since we can't take Lucy to the nursery there without her picking up a monthly virus of some sort.
All things that scare people in micropreemie world. Virus, bacteria, infection are all seriously scary words in these tiny humans.
Its amazing how somebody so small can change some pretty basic things in your life. And they don't even live at home yet!
Awesome dinner donated by a wonderful PA that Juan works with- He met her Friday and she heard about Prudence, and by Sunday we have a feast delivered! She is a rockstar!
Goodnight from micropreemie world!!!
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