June 28th, 2006 and not much pee yet! His nurse says it's very common in babies like Beau. Their bodies can only focus on one thing at a time and right now it's focusing on the infection. They'll probably give him a diaretic and she says premies like often need them when they're in the hospital. I'm going to go see him this afternoon and I'll post the newest update afterwards.

Please pray for him. Good thoughts!!

I just got back from the NICU. 5 good hours with Beau too! I got to Kangaroo him again today for 2 hours. He does so well when he's being held skin to skin. I also had a "family meeting" with one of his doctors today. She said his latest ultrasound shows old blood in the space at the base of his brain. She thinks his second head ultrasound was a day shy of catching it. It's been about a week and a half since that second ultrasound and it doesn't look too bad. He hasn't shown any problems because of it and it's not putting any pressure on his brain or disrupting the flow of fluid around his brain. They gave it a 2 on a scale of 1-4, average she says. She also told me it's expected in a baby his GA and they were pleasantly surprised when it didn't show up on the second scan. They're going to do a follow up on Monday and plan a course of action depending on that scan.

She also went further into detail about his lung infection and false blood infection. Everyone at the NICU has brought up the "how he got this infection in the first place" talk. It didn't even occur to me to ask that. I know hospitals have bacteria and it could have come from anywhere. I could have breathed it on him for all we know. My word of advice to all you NICU parents out there, family, and friends of Beau- don't do that to yourself. Don't keep racking your brains about where an infection could have come from. It will drive you insane and no one in this situation needs to lose more sanity. Instead- be calm, understand the risks, but focus on what they plan to do about it. Anyways, I'm done with that rant. Beau will be on a 7 day course with those two antibiotics to really kick this bacteria's butt! She also said they can't get rid of it completely because of his breathing tube, and bacteria love breathing tubes! The goal is to knock it out enough to keep it dormant and keep Beau healthy and growing so it doesn't bother him again. Chances are it will come back but for now, we focus on getting rid of it.

He's peeing more than he was yesterday, and he's not so swollen. Thank God for diarectics when you have a sick kid that wants to hold on to fluid. His CO2 levels are up and the respitory therapists aren't happy about that. The doctor seems to think it's related to where they take his blood gases. Originally they were taking them from his arterial line to get a baseline, now they're taking it from his heel. This would make sence since capillaries aren't as O2 saturated as arteries. The plan of action for this little turn of events is to keep going as they have been and keep checking his blood gases to see if it works itself out or if the original baselines were flawed due to where they were taking his blood gases from. So now another wait and see.

And as always, I like to leave these blogs on a positive note. Tonight Beau's doctor said he's a tough little boy and his progress so far has been very good. When he had his PDA surgery and now this infection, all they wanted was for him to stay the same and not get worse, and he has so far. I guess that's all we can do, pray he stays the same or gets better. Personally I'm praying he gets better.