A Boatload of Good News

I just got off the phone with Heather and I thought that I didn’t want to wait to share the good news. After Heather and I talked, I asked myself this question: Did I miss something? Because as of yesterday the doctors told us that Carson would still need to be on his ventilator for 3-5 days. But as of today, he’s off it!! The nurses told Heather that he is breathing on his own and doing even better being off of the vent. He does have some humidified oxygen that he’s using to breathe, but that’s more for the trachea tube than anything else. Praise God. Thank you everyone for your prayers!! This is just one more thing that will bring him closer to coming home. And the good news doesn’t stop there.

The neonatologist told Heather that a lot of things will be happening this week. First, they are planning to take out the clear tube that runs to his stomach in a few days. They said that they don’t have a need to be suctioning the secretions anymore. Along with that, they are planning to start tube feeding Carson as early as tomorrow! This will be a good indicator of how long it will be before we get to take Carson home. We are so excited for this! Please pray that he tolerates the milk and eats like a big boy. The doctor also let us know that as soon as Carson’s tracheotomy is healed, that Heather and I will be able to hold him. They expect that we will be able to do this within a week and we can’t wait!

And now for some odds and ends. We all prayed for poop, and well, he going to have one, but not by choice. The nurses are going to give him a suppository to get things moving since he hasn’t had a poop in a few days. So please keep praying that everything would function in his bowel. Heather said she also noticed that Carson has stopped drooling. If anyone has noticed, it was giving him a bad rash on his chin, but it looks like the drooling is gone and the nurses are going to treat that with a cream. And to mark off one more tube from our tube list, he’s likely going to get the arterial splice IV line taken out of his foot. That has been in there for doing blood gasses and just in case the doctors needed to pump some meds in without having to stick him. They said they don’t have a need for that anymore so bye bye!

We are so glad to have a bunch of good news in one day. Carson is such a fighter and is doing so well! Thank you for everyone’s prayers and support. We couldn’t go through this without you all!

Love,
Steve and Heather