The Toledo News

Greetings from Toledo-

The good news is that things are progressing slowly here. The doctor told me that bad things happen quickly and good things happen slowly. So we are content with the pace here. Much of the time is spent monitoring a variety of things- numbers, numbers, numbers,- and attempting to maintain the best balance possible.

The news in a nutshell-

The results of the heart ultrasound are in. Before a baby is born, the heart has a bypass which allows the blood to skip the lungs since they are not yet functioning. This duct often does not close properly in preemies and that is the cause of the murmur. Toby has begun a 3 day treatment w/ drugs to encourage it to close. It will be checked again at the end of the week. The doctor says they will try drugs 3 times before judging them a failure and considering surgery.

Tobias had his second blood transfusion yesterday evening. He feels much better now! For several days he had been unable to tolerate stimulation and I had even had to give up touching him. (It made some of those aforementioned numbers go crazy.) He is working so hard just on his basic body functions that he has no energy left over. And that was compounded by the anemia and blood lost to the monitoring so he was feeling a bit run down. He is doing much better today, though still not welcoming too much hands-on. (Interesting fact- a baby his size has only about two and a half ounces of blood and will not be able to maintain his supply for several more months. Expect more transfusions.) He officially passed the 2 lb mark today. (I think the added blood helped. Is that cheating?)

He is now receiving almost 2 tsps of milk every 3 hours through his feeding tube and is tolerating it well. The rest of his nutrition is still through an IV. He is expected to remain at this level the rest of the week while the heart problem is treated.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. You are a big encouragement to us. God is faithful and you are an evidence to us of that.