big strides -- the video entry.

Calder is really moving it! For the first time, this week the nurses have begun to be willing to say that Calder will come home “soon.”

Loving his puppy duds,
from Laura, one of his primaries

Calder moved to “the wall” on Monday. This means that while he’s still getting oxygen, it’s just a whiff. His oxygen level is now constantly at 100%, but that’s because his flow is down so low, to 0.1 (he started at 0.2 on the wall) that anything lower would hardly make a difference. He also no longer has to deal with a humidified flow, which cuts out his occasional desat on account of a nice fat drop of water trickling down his nasal passages. The nurses have not yet tried him on the “room air challenge,” meaning testing whether he can go without any oxygen for a specific period of time without desatting to a specific level, but given how long he spends with the cannula pulled out of his nose on his own accord, he might just pass. Fingers crossed, as this would mean he would not need to come home on oxygen. I’m still bracing myself for a tank, but wouldn't it be so nice if he only came home on a monitor?

On Tuesday, we learned that his eyes have both improved enough to be considered Stage 1, back down from Stage 2.

You could say the biggest thing standing between him and home is his feeding. But he’s making tons of progress here, too, much more than the nurses expected for a kid who had a very uncomfortable breathing tube down his throat for as long as Calder did. He started with two p.o. (per os, “by mouth” in Latin) feeds per day at 10 ccs (with the rest given to him via his feeding tube) and is now up to four at 15 ccs; the rest he still gets through his oral feeding tube. Kraemer and I take turns feeding him. You can tell he’s getting used to it. He only needs a little chin support, and he wastes no time in downing whatever he’s given. I swear he took his bottle in five minutes last night. We’re told that once he gets to full feeds in his bottle (currently 60 ccs), he’ll need to be able to down it within 30 minutes – any longer and he’d be burning more calories than he’d be taking in. Another “challenge” he faces before being discharged (without a g tube, anyway, a tube that would be inserted through an incision in his abdomen into his stomach.)

He continues to get physical therapy daily from a specialist, and Kraemer and I try to execute the routine when we go in every day, too. Calder is a grunter, particularly while exercising.

Amidst all these changes, Calder has become quite somber lately, though I prefer to consider him contemplative. Sometimes he's a grump, too, though he tends to calm right down with a little mobile lullaby and a paci.

Serious? Or pensive?

A rare smile

Last Friday night I officially went non-dairy. It hasn’t been TERRible but it sure hasn’t been easy. It seems every dinner we dream up involves dairy in some capacity. To ease the transition, we stopped on Sunday at a vegan bakery, Sticky Fingers, that I dare say – despite the fact that it’s a good 20 minutes north of us – will become a regular weekend stop for me. I wish I had a photo. I walked out with a pile of boxes: two cookies, a brownie, four cupcakes and a piece of pumpkin pie. Envision me peeking over the top of the stack. I know it doesn’t sound healthy (okay, it’s not, dairy or no) for a person to eat all this in the span of a week, but I am *transitioning*!

I've got my eye on  you.