A setback, a spa treatment, and a special sleeper

Shortly after I finished my blog entry at midnight on Saturday, Samuel started throwing up. He threw up three times that night and so they took him off of his feeds completely, modified his IV nutrition to compensate, and put his ventilator settings back up. So much for increasing feeds and weaning ventilation. An X-ray, a belly ultrasound, and routine sepsis cultures were done the next morning. He is off feeds for five days now while we make sure there is not a problem requiring more attention. So far, the scans look good and so does he. It is possible that the changes were just a little too much, too soon, for our persnickety little boss-man.

Since Samuel was stable this morning, they started the slow wean from one of his narcotics. They also tried to get the ventilator settings back down again but Samuel was not happy with this. After a couple of hours of frustrating his very skilled and attentive respiratory therapist, it was decided to just let him coast for the rest of the day. 

Samuel did tolerate his nurse and I giving him a bath and changing his bedding. Jen and I laid out a basin of warm water, towels, soap, tiny nail clippers, lotion and new blankets. We fussed and cooed over him for some time during this full-on spa treatment. No more dry skin and barfy blankets for this baby. Jen even suggested that we put him in a sleeper, so long as it had snaps so that we could work around his various lines. I happened to have one ready for this moment; a soft blue sleeper that has been worn by all three of his brothers before him. Jen found him a cap and I took many photos of my fourth boy dressed for the first time.

I included a photo of his manicure below. However, I did not take a photo of me teaching Samuel to give the finger. Seconds after his Foley catheter was removed, Samuel peed. Jen and I felt sure that this was a "screw you and your Foley" kind of pee. The boy has attitude, as evidenced by his fight against this whole diaphragmatic hernia doomsday blah blah blah. It seemed apt that he have some new ways to communicate besides desats, grumpy faces, and peeing on things. Yea, so 'flipping the bird' is not the most appropriate, but we work with what we've got at the time. Rage against the machine, little dude.

Sweet Sam with a new lid (to cover the bad 'do).

His first sleeper - previously worn by Daniel, Zachary, and Jacob.

A baby manicure from Mommy.

One more picture. Okay, sorry. I'll stop now.