A little progress

Today was a nerve racking but overall successful day.

Wyatt was extubated!

When the Dr.'s made their rounds this morning, they decided that they were comfortable with and that it was time to remove that tube.  As soon as they finished discussing Wyatt and moved to the next room, Wyatt's nurses grabbed the respiratory therapist so they could get that tube out while the Dr.'s were still in the general vicinity.  Smart thinking!  About 10 minutes later, the tube was removed and a nasal cannula was put in place.  He has a beanie on his head again because the cannula can not be taped to his face {essentially NO tape is being used on his skin unless it's absolutely imperative that something not be moved, like the UA line and picc line} so they are tying the cannula to the beanie so it stays in place.

He is a MUCH happier little boy now :)

Throughout the day he's had a few episodes of either vagaling or brady spells.  Basically what happens is his heart rate plummets down to the 60's and his blood pressure drops.  It happened several times earlier in the day and he just had another spell a few minutes ago.  They are monitoring him closely when it happens so they can try and figure out why it's happening, but he recovers from it very quickly.  According to his Dr.'s this sometimes just happens in newborns especially after they've been extubated... but I still don't like it at all.  They don't like it either and they're definitely watching it, but it's not something that they're worried about.  His lungs are working all on their own now, and he is still just 28 weeks so he'll get occasional apnea because his brain isn't super developed yet.  I just hope it doesn't happen anymore.

Wyatt also had all of his dressings changed today.  His nurse, Nicole, wanted to try giving him a pain killer that wasn't as strong as morphine before his dressings were changed {He cries a lot during his dressing changes and so he is given something because we think he's in pain} Since he isn't eating yet, they didn't want to give him something orally that might upset his stomach, so he got a Tylenol suppository.  He did not like that one bit. haha I don't blame him!  I'm not a fan of suppositories either.  Anyway, his skin is actually looking pretty good!  His legs and feet were a little swollen and they think it's a side effect of being extubated, but his little fingers and toes all have new skin on them!  I'm really excited about that.  Since they had new skin on them, they didn't have to be individually wrapped and we get to see them poking out of his wrappings.  It's too cute.  His little face is pretty bad where they took the tape off after extubating him.  The only way I can think to explain how it looks is that it looks like a really bad sunburn that's peeling off dead skin and the skin underneath is red and dry looking.  So he got aquaphor on his face too.  The skin specialist was very pleased with how his skin is healing up so I decided to push my luck and ask a question.  I asked her if at the next dressing change, it would be possible to get his footprints.  They didn't do it at the hospital he was born at because he was rushed to the NICU and his skin was wrapped up pretty immediately.  She put on her thoughtful face and asked Wyatt's nurse if there was a non-toxic ink that could be used.  She said that there is actually a thing where they can do inkless footprints {meaning ink doesn't actually go on the babies foot, you press it down on the ink pad and there is plastic over the top of it.  I think that's freaking awesome} and so the skin specialist said it would be okay.  YAY!!!  He'll be almost two weeks old at that point, but that's okay.  His feet will be pretty close to what they were at birth.  I'm so excited that they have something that will work for our situation so that I can show him just how teeny his feet were when he's all grown up.

Another big thing happened today.  Literally.  Wyatt had his first really big poop.  The nurses let me change him, yay!  And as I was trying to be careful wiping his tar poop off his butt {that stuff sticks like nobodies business!} he pooped again.  HUGE.  Luckily I caught it in the gauze and it didn't get on anything, but holy cow.  No wonder he was in such a grumpy mood earlier.  He's probably had cramping from having full bowels.  Poor thing.  Needless to say, he was in a much better mood after all that came out.

Finally, I got to help change all the bedding, meaning, I got to hold my little man again! :) :) :)

We got to have lots of touch time today and I loved every second of it.  I can't wait until I get to hold him to my chest so he can hear my heart beat, and I really can't wait until we can touch skin on skin.  I just want to kiss him all over and smell his little baby smell... Sigh... In time.