Thursday Update

Hello everyone- thanks for checking in with us. So many of you have called, emailed, and left messages on Facebook, and we really do appreciate them. We have been overwhelmed with everything we have going on, so we have not been able to answer each of you, but your messages mean a lot to us, and we appreciate that you are thinking of our boys. It does help!

Today was kind of a 'status quo' day. I guess no bad news is good news! Jack is pretty much the same. He is relying on the oxygen to help him breathe, but they have not had to intubate him, which is a relief. His respiration rate is still high, which means that he is still working hard to breathe. But, he is sleeping and eating well, and still does not have a fever. Due to the virus, he has tiny little collapses in his lung. The nurses assure me that this sounds a lot worse than it is. It's called adelectisis, and it just happens because his alveoli are full of mucous, so they don't open, they sort of collapse. The hard part about RSV is that there is no way to predict how long he will be sick, or how sick he will get. The doctors and nurses think that he is in the trhoes of the worst of it, so let's hope that things are looking up tomorrow.

Yesterday, they were talking about sending him in to Children's Hospital in Boston, intubating him, doing a spinal tap, and other terrible things, but he has been very strong and has not needed any of that. Our friends in the NICU agreed to take him instead of sending him to Children's, if it came to that. This is typically not the protocol- once a baby leaves the hospital, he is not supposed to return to the NICU for fear of infecting other babies (Mairead was also an exception to this rule because she had not left for more than 24 hours or something to that effect).

Ben is doing really well. He is taking his entire feeding, it just takes him a really long time to do it. They would like to see him speed things up before sending him home. There IS a vaccine for RSV, and they have decided to administer that to him so that when both boys do come home, Ben will not get RSV from Jack. Ben is up to 5lbs 11 oz right now and actually has chubby little cheeks! He is adorable and much more alert lately. Jack is still a very alert little guy, even though he doesn't feel well. He is still very tiny at 4lbs 9oz. The nurses seem to love him, though, and they take very good care of him.

So, we still don't have anticipated discharge dates for either baby, as they are both in a 'wait and see' kind of pattern. I hope that they are both very strong and healthy soon, and that we are posting new pictures of them together. Thanks again for all of your support.