July 12th, 2006. Beau is doing well still. He's been put on an antibiotic to knock out his infection which is bright pink and he threw up all over his brand new clean clothes that I had just finished washing. I'm smiling about it. I love being a mom to him and if that means laundry, then I'm happy to do it. Anyways, back to the infection. The attending doctor feels that bacteria is there, but only hanging out on the tube and not really bothering Beau, but wants to be safe and treat him for 7 days. I am completely fine with treating before it becomes a problem.

After that, I asked the attending how he plans to proceed with Beau should he continue to do as well as he's doing on his vent settings. He doesn't want to switch Beau back to the other mode that was better for his lungs. Instead he wants to keep weening him off of the vent as they've been doing until Beau is at a place where he can be switched to CPAP. Beau's vent settings were further reduced last night to 30 breaths per minute that the machine gives him. He was at 40 last week. So far he's done well, not great, but good. Every day they take a blood gas on him and adjust him as he can handle. He's had a few days where he couldn't be adjusted, but seems to be doing better on the lower settings as a whole. He doesn't dsat as much, although when he does it's scarier than before. Yesterday he got to 39 percent before he picked himself back up.... not good. His pCO2 is much better than it had been on the lower settings. He's still bearing down and holding his breath, but also pulls himself out of that sooner too. I've also found that by lightly blowing on his face he forgets what made him angry and stops holding his breath.

Beau had his first eye exam yesterday. The results came back as immature. That is really good. They could have come back with ROP which is a condition that effects blood vessel growth in the eye and can have little to no problems or blindness with the most extreme situation.

Other than that Beau is still stable and doing well. He still likes to be wrapped up tight and loves to be held. He doesn't really like new people, which isn't good concidering the nursing staff alone contains around 200 people. He doesn't like to be stroked or messed with too much, but loves to cuddle up with your hand or his animals.

Please keep praying for him to continue to do well, stay healthy, and grow stronger. Thank you.