The B-Boys unmasked

Today Greydon is doing pretty good. He lost weight the last two days, which is not a happy trend, but tonight gained it back...we need him to keep packing it on.

The weight loss coincided with him going off all of his liquids and IV's! SO now he is just on mother nature's finest. Well, almost. Since the two weight losses they mixed in a little fortifier, but it doesn't add that much and he just barely went on it, so this weight gain is not from the fortifier, but hopefully it will help keep some meat on his ribs the next couple of days.

His chest films still have haze, and he continues to be on at least three different antibiotics. But they are more interested in his oxygen levels than his x-rays. He has not handled being weened down on the new c-pap, he doesn't react well when they try to get him used to needing less pressure. They are going to leave it for a day, which is apparently a long time to them because there is not much they "leave" be for a whole day. As soon as he got on the c-pap they started giving him less help every day trying to get his lungs all buff and strong.

Greydon continues to develop his talents. Not only did he master the removal of his breathing tube, not just the feeding tube which is getting pulled out by him frequently, not just his little sensors that pop right off when he stretches his hand just right. Now he has proven very adept at making a mess of his c-pap and the hood that is supposed to be holding it on. He'll push his head around and pull on it until it is either almost all the way off or acting as more of a multi-tiered blindfold/torture device than anything. It took two respiratory therapists, their assistant, the nurse, and Kristen holding his hands to try to get it back in place... and he instantly started messing it up again. Now they are swaddling him half to comfort him and half to strap the kid's arms down I think.

I have to say "like father like son" on the dislike of masks.

Just as Greydon is starting to beat his infections I caught my own. I started getting the sniffles, and then a sore throat and I can't deny it anymore. I have been wearing a mask when I go visit him, but still feel completely guilty for being there with a cold of all things. And those masks just bite. Today the second it got next to my eyes they started to be irritated and water, I don't know what that was all about, and breathing in your own air just gets dang hot.

I didn't feel good about taking my turn holding him yesterday when he got off the respirator and I didn't feel good about helping Kristen with his bath tonight and I could throw a pretty big pity party about it given half the chance.

And then you hear snippets of conversation, or chat briefly with some other parents. One mom who is an adopting mom, is here from British Columbia, has been for 6 weeks I think. She even went to a lactation specialist and took meds to be able to breast feed (I hadn't heard of that) They had been trying for a baby through 17 years, 3 miscarriages, a tubal pregnancy and some sort of adoption that didn't go right I think.. They get to take their baby boy home Saturday, she is gleaming and glowing, and he is beautiful with a huge head of fuzzy pitch black hair, I am so happy for her. The baby next door to us has been there for 5 months and isn't scheduled to go home within the next couple of weeks, I don't know his condition, but he's a cutey. Another couple had twins, one of which had to have part of it's bowel removed when they didn't work properly fast enough.

Let's just say there are plenty of reminders to keep the pity party a strictly internal affair, and short-lived.

I did walk to work all during ballroom bootcamp like I told myself I wanted to, and today for the first day of school as well. I start teaching around 6am, so the predawn mile walk was quite peaceful and nice. My thoughts were that walking a couple of miles every other day was going to be good for me... so far I'm not bubbling over with optimism as I sniff and cough into my handkerchief of bitterness.

I think teaching 70 kids in a large gymnasium to foxtrot didn't do my sore throat any favors, teaching the next 40 in an even noisier environment did it in and I squeeked the rest of today more than spoke.

The day's schedule brought us into town right after I got home from teaching and didn't give us a chance to get back to the house until 12 hours later... we're both a little ragged around the edges... We know better, but today was the exception and we had some great visits.