Look Ma, no ventilator!

Hooray for no more ventilator! At least for now, Cameron is off of that thing. He made AMAZING progress last week, thanks to some new docs and the wonder drug that is Decadron (a steroid). Here's the run down-

Monday- Cameron starts on Decadron, but has a positive culture for group B strep (a nasty infection that can cause meningitis).

Tuesday- Cameron is off the oscillator already and onto a conventional ventilator that allows him to take his own breaths. He's up to full feeds and has lots of poopies. :)

Wednesday- Daddy gets to hold Cameron for the first time! He is also doing so well with his feeds they take him off of all his IV fluids.


Thursday- They did a spinal tap to check for meningitis. It was negative! Yay! So now he just gets some extra antibiotics to kill the Strep.

Friday morning- I got to hold Cameron for a whole hour skin to skin (kangaroo care). Cameron's doc said he was doing so well, that she was ready to take him off the ventilator already! She wanted to wait though because he's going to have a minor surgery on Monday to repair a hernia.


So what does Cameron decide to do Friday night when we show up to visit? He PULLS THE TUBE OUT! Silly goose. I peek in to look at him and he's just kicking his little legs around and I see the tape sticking straight up from his mouth. So they decided just to leave the tube out and put him on a CPAP machine.


He hung out on the CPAP all day yesterday and daddy got to hold him again last night. This morning he was doing so good on the CPAP, they decided to try him on just a nasal cannula. He did pretty well on it for about an hour, but he was being pretty fussy, so they put him back on the CPAP for now. Surgery for his hernia is tomorrow morning, and they expect it to be a quick and easy procedure.

We are so happy and relieved that Cameron is doing so much better this week. All of the nurses and techs are amazed at how well he is doing now.

We'll post more pics to the Picasa web album hopefully by the end of the day Monday.