August 17th, 2006. Where do I start? Okay first of all Beau is doing great when he's not spelling. He should be outgrowing his spells in the next two-ish weeks. His nurses and doctor seem to think he's spelling as often as he does because he has reflux. Now they're trying to find a right combination of anti reflux medications for him. In my opinion they're working, but not all the time.

Beau seems to have developed or started developing "plus disease" in his eyes. This is due to the ROP and prematurity. In a nutshell the vessels at the back of his eye aren't developing properly and can't fix themselves at this point. Therefore he'll need laser surgery as early as next week if they find it's gotten worse since Wednesday. Thankfully they've caught it early and are capable of fixing it. Just think, babies like him would have been blind just 20 years ago! Crazy to think how incredible technology and science is now. As they've told me, the surgery is considered invasive, but has a very high success rate. On one hand statistics like that mean nothing to me at this point, but I can't deny they do comfort sometimes.

His doctor sat down with us Tuesday and we got to express concerns and talk about what's going on and the future for Beau. Everyone will be happy to know that at this point his job is no longer to just stay alive and we don't have to live hour to hour day to day anymore. Now they look at things over one week's time. Beau's job now is to get himself ready to go home. I must say he's doing a GREAT job at that. The requirements for him to go home are:
1. Be comfortable and stable in an open crib - Done
2. Stop spelling - Working on it
3. Weight at least 5 lbs - He's 4 lbs 14 ounces now
4. Get his hernia fixed - Will happen in a few weeks
5. Feed exclusively from a bottle (breast feeding is optional and limited because he needs the extra calories) - Took 13 mL from a bottle yesterday and finally got the hang of beast feeding last night

So as you can see we're on the right track and God willing he'll follow the schedule and come home right around his due date. Please pray for that. Pray for his continued progress. Thank you.