26 Jan 07

Tommy Update
The kids and I are headed back up to OKC right after school. But I wanted to make sure to keep everyone in the know about the most recent updates! We will be back by 4pm or 5pm on Saturday.

Tommy now weighs 3 pounds 3.9 ounces!!! He is doing just great. He'll probably start bottle feeding here in the next 7-10 days, so that is exciting. He already sucks on his pacifier every once in a while, so hopefully, he'll do well. He is up to 25ml's per feeding which equates to a total intake of about 6.7 ounces per day!!

His brain ultrasound came back with slight improvements--there are two ventricles in the back of the brain through which the blood drains. One ventricle has stayed the same, but the other seems to be draining better. The Dr.s still are not too concerned about anything at this point. They tell me that as long as things don't get any worse, we'll be okay.

One very minor negative note to add, though--The nurses showed Tricia that Tommy's hand was all swollen today--the Dr. thinks that the "board" that stabilized his arm when he had the blood transfusion IV (they left the IV in for a couple of days in case he needed more blood) was taped too tightly. They took an X-ray of his hand to make sure that no damage was done to his joints. I guess when a baby that small has swelling, it can actually pull apart the joints of his fingers. But, the X-ray showed all was well. They'll watch the swelling in the next 24 hours to make sure it goes back down. Tricia said they thought it would be back to normal by tonight. While I wasn't too happy about the fact that this could have been caused by one of the nurses, I am glad they took the X-ray and found no damage. Everyone makes mistakes, so if that is the worse mistake someone makes, I'll be a happy guy!

Tricia also told me today that she found Tommy's hat--the one Grandma Emerson (her mom) gave him. It got put into the hospital's wash and was lost for about 2 weeks. But, the nurse took her back where they have all the clean linen, and she found it mixed in with all the other hats that they had. To me, a guy, this is not a great and wonderful moment, but Tricia is very sentimental about that kind of stuff, so she was bouncing off the ceiling when she told me! So, I'm glad she was able to find it.

That is about it for now! Thanks for all you do and all the prayers! We truly enjoyed our meals this week--like we do every week! It is so great to have a nice warm meal to eat without having to make it yourself! We are so blessed to have you all as partners in this really tough time for our family. But we are all doing well, and a large part of that comes from your prayers and incredible generosity.

My thanks goes out to each and every one of you!