12/24 - Leo gets a couple early Christmas gifts

Leo continues to have output from his chest tube but it continues to decrease. During the day shift today, he had a total of 18ml and so far tonight, he has had a total of 5 ml. He had a chest x-ray again this morning which showed some haziness indicating that fluid was present but no worse than previous days. He is scheduled to have another x-ray at 5am Christmas morning, not exactly the Christmas present Leo was wishing for but hopefully it brings good news. His G-tube leakage seems to be getting better as well as he only had 2ml of output from that today and non so far tonight. So getting better, just not at the rate we would like to see it yet.

A couple of big changes today for Leo. First, no more PulseOx. PulseOx is a sensor that Leo wears on his foot that monitors his O2 saturation. Of the three items being monitored (breathing rate, heart rate, and 02 saturation, his O2 saturation has always varied the most while the other two have been fairly constant. It has been six days since Leo has been off all breathing support so we were a little concerned that they removed this sensor. The nurses said they usually remove the sensor after 48 hours of no-dstats and Leo has had 6 days of no-dstats. They will continue to monitor his heart rate and breathing rate but it freaks us out a little without this sensor. The nurse said sooner or later we would have to remove the sensor.  After closely watching his O2 saturation for 44 days and nights, it is a difficult to adjust to not seeing the O2 stats on the monitor.

Second, Leo got a new bed today. His new bed is more like a crib instead of the Giraffe bed that he as been in since he entered the NICU. His room now seems huge because this bed is much smaller that the Giraffe bed. Below is a picture of his new bed.

Also, one of our favorite nurses gave Leo a monkey for a Christmas present. Below is a pic of him snuggling up to it.

Kate and I got to spend some quality time together today with Sammie and my family. While we will not be able to do our normal Christmas traditions, tomorrow will still be a special day for our family.  Not just because it is Christmas but also because Sammie will get to meet Leo. We miss our family and wish we could spend the day with everyone like we normally do but watching Sammie see Leo for the first time will take our mind off what we are missing. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas.