Little Man Update

Son is doing well and entirely ready to go home. The only delay is that the in-home nursing company we chose covers a few counties and hires local, job-specific nurses on a case-by-case basis. They are still working on finding enough staff.

Son has been approved for 16-hours / day of in-home nurse care for the first month, and then 12-hours / day for the next two months.

It's my hope that we're comfortable enough with providing all his care after three months of being home and won't need to request our insurance to approve more nursing time.

Son's throat suffered a lot of trauma with the six times that the breathing tube went in and out. His doctors decided enough was enough, and that giving him a stoma was the best option. For those of you that don't know what a stoma is, (No worries, I didn't know either but now it feels like I've been through nursing school with everything we've learned in the last 3 months), it's the hole that smoker's get put in their throat when they've smoked a few too many.

He now breathes through the stoma, and since vocal cords are in the throat area between mouth and stoma, he is unable to make a sound. There is no air going through that area to allow vocal cords to vibrate. We have the quietest baby ever. Children's hospital has already set us up with a speech therapist for when it comes time for him to start talking.

Since he's been fed through an NG tube (goes through his nose and down into his belly), eating orally is still a huge struggle, but we've been practicing with a "binky trainer" and he's managed to do well with it, for the most part.

Good news:
- He is entirely weened off morphine!!!
- Neurologists have determined that even though it's still up in the air about his mental capabilities, he has full hearing in both ears.
- Parents have determined that he's extremely cool.

3/15 is our new hopeful discharge date, but we'll see. Cross your fingers and toes!

***Update: 3/18 is the new hopeful discharge date. *sigh*.