Plastics

Yesterday I started working back in Muskegon. I went down to visit Lewis first thing in the morning to check up on him and see what the doctors had to say during their early morning rounds. Nothing new to report. I couldn't stay long because I had a 45 min drive into the office - not quite my normal commute. I usually have a 7 min drive to work. I use quite a bit more gas, too.

So while I was at work Lauren spent some mom time with Lewis. When she got down to visit him, Lewis had his feeding tube out! I'm sure he's happy about that. That couldn't have been comfortable. The nurse told Lauren that the occupational therapist had just left after feeding Lewis. She fed Lewis non-thickened milk and he was fine. So no more thickener! Since Lewis had just been fed, Lauren stayed down and just held him for about 2 hours. He loved it! I got back and sat with Lauren for a couple minutes before we put Lewis back to bed.

We went down for his 8:00 feeding but the nurse had already fed him. Apparently he had gotten himself up and was screaming pretty loud. He was hungry! So we just sat with him for a while. The nurse said that since he wasn't on the thickener anymore that there wasn't any reason why Lauren couldn't try breastfeeding. So we came back about 10:30 to give that a try. Lewis caught on pretty fast! We weighed him before and after to try to measure the amount of milk he took. The scale said 20 mL so we bottle fed him a little more. Not bad for the first try! I fed him the rest. He was getting really fussy toward the end of his bottle and I soon found out why. I think the scale was a little off and we over fed Lewis a bit - he spit up all over me. Guess that solidifies my "dad" status.

This morning was similar to yesterday. I went down to visit Lewis before I went into work. The nurse said that no doctors had been by to see him yet. So nothing new again. I drove over to Muskegon and got to work. After a meeting I had today I noticed I had a voicemail. It was Dr. Mann (the plastic surgeon). We've been trying to get a hold of him for a few days now. Sounds like there was a communication breakdown somewhere along the way and he never received our page. He also said that he tried calling down to the NICU and left a message for us to call him - we didn't get it. In any case, he gave me some numbers to reach him but said he would call back later today.

After lunch I received another call from Dr. Mann, this time I was able to answer. He was down in the NICU with Lauren at Lewis's bed. He took off the gauze on Lewis's incision and showed Lauren (and talked me through) what was going on, what he's looking for, and what he wants to see before Lewis can go on his back. He said that there are areas around the incision that are like a blister. The skin underneath is healing fine but there is something like a blister on top of the skin. So we have to wait for that to go away before Lewis can go on his back and then come home. Dr. Mann estimated July 7 as the day Lewis would be released. Not exactly what we wanted to hear. But we would rather have Lewis spend extra time in the hospital and fully heal rather than take him home and have a problem and have to bring him back. Please pray that Lewis's back heals quickly so we can take him home!

So thats where we're at. Here's some pictures (and a video)!

Lewis likes to just lay in his bed and look around so the nurses like to give him something to look at. He loves it!

Posing in his sleep

So while Lauren was pregnant, Lewis had the hiccups 5 or 6 times a day. We only see him have the hiccups 2 or 3 times a day now that he's on the outside.