Happy Father's Day!

Well folks....Kale has lasted all weekend on the Drager vent! He went in strong into the weekend, and then yesterday and today had some not so good gases. Derc and I were pretty sure that by today he would be back on the high frequency vent with the way things were trending. But, he surprised us again and had a great gas at 8pm tonight and he will have another gas at midnight to make sure things are still looking good. His lung x-rays look worse, and our nurse told us that they are what they call a 'white-out'. She said that on x-rays air shows as black, so when looking at a x-ray of lungs, they should be black and filled with air, and when they are gray or 'hazy' as his have been it means there is either fluid of some sort, scar tissue or inflammation. So, the fact that they have hit 'white-out' status isn't good. They gave him 3 doses of Lasix yesterday and then today started him back on 2 doses/day of steroids (he was down to just one dose) and also started him on a new diuretic today. His potassium levels were looking low since they have been drying him out with Lasix so much, so this new diuretic shouldn't affect his potassium levels as much, but will affect his sodium levels which they can easily supplement. We're really hoping that with these treatments his lung x-rays look better tomorrow morning. Derc got to hold Kale today which was a great Father's Day gift. Kale did incredibly well while Derc was holding him, his oxygen saturation stayed above 90% almost the whole time, and he got to hold him for about an hour. After Derc held him they drew a blood gas and it looked much better than his previous one, so it must have been Dad's lucky touch :)

He is still handling his feedings really well and is back up to 2 lbs. 7 oz. (he dipped to 2 lbs. 5 oz. over the weekend due to the diuretic). His length is up to 14.5 inches!! He grew a whole inch in a week, woohoo!!

This week Kale has another brain scan (Monday) and next week he will have his first eye exam. We're really hoping that his brain scan shows that his bleed has improved, maybe even completely resolved.

Today was a pretty long day, and for me, one of mixed emotion. It was so great to see Derc with Kale, and watch how Kale responded to him. He is already a great father and loves his new role, and I can't wait to get our little guy home so they can take naps together and watch football games. I'm so excited for all of our 'family firsts' together. Derc and I traveled back to Cedar Rapids after we were done at the hospital and just got back into town. It was the first Father's Day since my dad passed away in January. I knew this day would be incredibly difficult for me, and I'm lucky to have such amazing family to lean on for support. Derc and I met my sister, Justin and Jordan at the cemetery in Cedar Rapids to visit my dad's site. I got to spend some time sitting there with them and 'talking' to my dad. We all miss him very much but it was nice to have all of us sitting around just talking, and thought about what he would have said had he been there talking with us. He definitely would be telling jokes, and they would likely be jokes at either of his son-in-law's expense :) He would have loved hearing Jordan say, 'Hi B-pa!' (which apparently means grandpa in 'almost 2 yr. old talk'). I think he would have liked to hear stories of how Kale is doing and he would have said he's a fighter and would have followed that with a hand on my shoulder saying, "I wonder where he gets that from" with a wink. He would have told Sarah and I he's proud of us. He loves us. He would have told the boys the same thing, just not in those words - in some other form of man-talk. We miss him like crazy, there is no doubt about that. But we know he's around, especially on days like today - When we go to the cemetery and the sun shines right on his spot like it did today. He has ways of saying 'I'm here'. Love you dad.

So...Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there, we hope you had a great one! Thanks for checking in on Kale, we're hoping his week is steady and he can stay on this vent through the week and his brain scan looks good!