Prayer Request and Update

9:22 p.m.

BIG prayer request:

John and Susan just met with the doctor and were told that David has developed some swelling in his brain. There are clots and bleeding in the ventricles in his brain. There are four grades, and he's a grade 3, which means it's not bleeding into his brain. Right now they're just monitoring it closely. Most of the time if a preemie is going to have a brain hemmorage like this or bleeding into the ventricles, it happens within the first 7 days of birth. The fact that it didn't happen until 2 1/2 weeks is actually a good sign.

Please pray that it will resolve itself--that the excess fluid and blood will drain out on its own. If it doesn't and it keeps swelling, a spinal tap is the first option (at least one--it could be that he needs more than one) to drain the fluid and blood. (There's no spinal tap scheduled yet; they're just watching it.) If it gets worse after the spinal tap(s), the standard protocol is to put in a shunt or a reservoir, tapping a shunt from his brain inside down to his intestines, but the doctor said he hasn't had to do that in a long time. Please pray that he won't even need a spinal tap. Also pray that he won't suffer any brain damage.

Today's update:

They're still having a hard time weaning him off the nitric oxide, instead of dropping it one point (or one part per millionth) every six hours, they're going to drop it one point every day, which seems to be working better. They had it down to 3 yesterday, and they got it down to 2 today.

He's going up on his feeds to 16 ml every 3 hours tomorrow.

The pic line, which was the IV going directly into the vein, was taken out today since all of his nutrients are now coming from breastmilk. They started him on a human milk fortifier (HMF), which is like a calorie pack, and he seems to be tolerating it just fine. It's designed to help him put on weight. Thankfully, he has no IVs anymore, lessening the chances of infection.

His phytotherapy lights were turned off today, which is especially nice for Susan and John since they can see his sweet face (the whole thing--not just from the nose down because of the eye shades).

He gets weighed every other day, and on Monday he had lost 10 grams, so he's closer to 2 lbs 3 oz.

His oxygen levels are up and down and up and down. He was at 71 as of 11:25 a.m.

More pictures are on the way. The ones recently posted are not the most recent. They're from 11/28. Last picture is of Mommy Susan (Kane) Langager praying for Baby David. I'd like to encourage you to pray for David as if he were your own. You're such an awesome prayer team!