Anne as a free woman and more Thom news (again, by Errol Lord)

Before I get to the (slightly) boring words, here is the little guy:

I am sorry that I have been so slow in mass distributing pictures. I (meaning Errol) still don’t have a USB cable for my camera. The pictures herein are pictures that Kate took. I thank her for sending them to me.

Thom is doing really well in the NICU. The health problem that he is most suceseptible to is gastro-intestinal problems. If they feed him through the stomach too fast or too slow, they could ruin his GI-tract. This makes his milk intake a tough thing to decide upon. At first (meaning Wednesday morning), they started giving him 1 CC of milk–which is about a fifth of a teaspoon. He tolerated that amount very well (meaning that he digested it and had a bowel movement). Thus, they began to up his intake. He has advanced very quickly and is now at 6 CCs per three hours. A full diet consists of about 25 CCs per three hours. If he stays at this pace he should have a full diet in about a week. That is when he will start putting on the pounds (although he has gained an ounce since birth). He is doing really well otherwise. He is breathing well; his heart rate continues to be fine; his blood pressure is normal; his blood sugar is normal (it did go up quite a bit when his body started working correctly vis-à-vis his blood sugar and they were still giving him a lot of glucose in his IV. They reduced the amount in his IV and it is back to normal). On Thursday his bilirubin was a bit high; so, they started him on UV therapy. Here he is doing that:

He was under the lights for about 36 hours. This morning his bilirubin went down enough for them to take him out from under the lights. There is little chance that the jaundice will come back. All in all, Thom is doing great.

Now on to Anne. She is also doing great. She worked really hard on her recovery, and the work is paying off. She pushed herself to walk when the pain was really bad. This sped up her recovery significantly. Her pressures continue to be elevated, but not too significantly. Other than her high pressures, she is asymptomatic. Because of this, she was discharged from the hospital today (Saturday). She spent 33 consecutive days in the hospital. Needless to say, she is happy to not be a patient anymore. That said, she continues to sleep at Scottsdale Shea. The hospital managed to get us a room on the pediatric floor of the hospital. We are allowed to stay there for free while Thom is in the NICU. That is really nice. Anne still suffers from quite a bit of pain from walking, and she is easily fatigued. Both will get better each day. It is amazing how much better she is doing in three days.

Those are all the words I can muster. Here are some more pictures.