Sunday, March 16, 2008

Family and friends,

Just a quick update. It is looking like Jonah will head home next week. He is back on room air without any oxygen assistance and eating all of his bottles. They are just waiting to finish antibiotics and make sure his surgical site is completely healed as well as sign off on his neurological team before he goes home. I have been told to plan on next week some time. Pray for our sweet Noah that he won't be in the hospital much longer.

The hospital here has not been helpful in allowing Shane's mother to stay behind so she can be with Noah when we return to Bakersfield with Jonah so we are looking at maybe transferring Noah back to Mercy Southwest Hospital where he was originally born back in October. It is a nice hospital that is a five minute drive from our home. I have been disappointed that Children's here is refusing to allow Grandma Hanna to stay behind and care for Noah during the week until Shane or I would visit for weekends but it doesn't seem they are willing to make an exception even with us living over an hour and a half away.

Hopefully there will be bed space available in Bakersfield as this would be the only other issue that could make transferring Noah back difficult.

Noah is stable enough to be closer to home. He is still on high flow humidity (oxygen) but he is on the lower liter side and is gradually coming down on his oxygen requirements. In the next couple of weeks we hope he'll be ready for the low flow oxygen. He struggles with finishing all of his bottles because he gets so exhausted but we are thinking of switching him to 27 calorie so he would have less volume to tackle with his bottle feedings. Plus with his chronic lung issues they want to limit his volume intake. Bless his heart he is on around 7 medications right now, including 3 diuretics.

Thank goodness Linda (Shane's mom) will be with us through March and then my Dad plans to come down for two months. The extra help is desperately needed and we are so blessed to have such a support system.

Thank you everyone for your prayers. I am so excited to finally have at least one of the boys coming home after over five months of being in the hospital.

We will keep you posted.

Shane and Michelle

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