Sleep Study Complete

Gabe just finished his fourth sleep study and although we ofcourse will not know results for several days (since it is a weekend), I can tell you it went well. They never had to turn the oxygen on at all. That's right, he spent the entire night on room air! During his feedings, I would study the CO2 monitor and it was usually in the upper 30's to lower 40's and I never saw it go into the 50's. His respiratory rate was usually in the lower 40's, sometimes the lower 50's. To refresh your memory, when we left the NICU, it was pretty exciting if he hung out in the 60's, and he frequently drifted up higher. Our last full night sleep study the CO2's were averaged in the upper 50's and we left on a full liter of oxygen. I am remembering how blindsided we felt after those studies - we looked at it as just another step to complete before we checked out of Chez Riley, never did we imagine it would wind up as a potential road block. If we had gotten the trach, we might just now be leaving the hospital.

In other news - we saw Dr. Rouse yesterday afternoon and Gabe has his button now, so feedings will be much easier and we won't have to worry about his Gtube snagging on something, or getting yanked on during playtime. He's already been on his tummy and was very happy to be there. We will have to get in a lot of tummy time work, since we haven't done much of that in the last month. He also had some blood drawn for pulmonology to check iron, blood gases and bili.

Since we were coming on a Friday, the big brothers came along, but were very disappointed in Indianapolis. The original plan was for Kaci and Justin to take them to the Zoo Boo, but it was raining. Plan B was the Children's museum, which was only open for the haunted house stuff, Plan C was to meet up with us at the hospital and ride the people mover but it is out of service for winterization maintenance. Soooo...they got to visit with the NICU nurses which they enjoyed (sorry you were the consolation prize ladies!) and then Kaci and Justin opted to brave Chuck E Cheese with them. I haven't heard how that went yet. I am going to sign off and see if Josh is here to pick us up yet - but I have to say again how much we appreciate all of your prayers. He always listens, I know, but aren't we fortunate that we are seeing the benefits and the power of those prayers. We were in shock after the first sleep study and knew we had to give the trach careful consideration, but something nagged at me not to do it. We wanted so much for somebody to just tell us what the right answer was - we knew there were many opinions and even though the opposition to the trach couldn't come right out and say it easily, we felt the tug. I am so grateful we listened and followed what we felt was right. Ok, I haven't had much sleep so it is not a good time to get emotional - later everybody!!