The Battle So Far

As far as Luke's health, in general, he is doing well. He is on a ventilator that gives him 600 little breaths per second, but is on a low oxygen amount, which is good because it means he is more or less breathing room air. He has been on and off the BR lights for his jaundice, but is currently off of them. (He looks really tan unlike his mom and dad). His biggest challenge right now is his PDA heart valve which is still open (a common issue with babies born this early). They've given him a few doses of medicine for it and the last echo scan showed that it is starting to shrink and hopefully with a few more doses of the medicine, it will continue to do so and eventually close. The doctors have already told us this could take awhile so we must be patient. As of a few days ago, they've begun giving him cheek swabs and small increments of breast milk to get his gut stimulated and start up his digestive system. So far he's responded well although he's not completely digesting it yet, which is fairly normal at this point. His hemoglobin, heart rate and blood pressure have remained good and stable so far and best of all his first two cranial scans of his brain have not shown any indication of any bleeding which is the best news of all.

While so far it's gone really well, we both know that this is still what they call the "honeymoon period" and there are still many challenges in the long road ahead. We'll continue to pray and hope for the best while we take it one day at a time.