What a week...

...and it's only Wednesday! Let's see... Max is up to 110 mL of fluid for his dialysis. He will go up to 120 mL tomorrow, which is the amount that he needs to be put onto the cycler. Considering the cycler isn't in yet, the doctors will continue to increase him until we have all that is needed to transition him over.

I have been training this week on how to do the cycler for when Max gets to come home. It is fairly easy! The hardest part is making sure you do everything sterile to prevent the risk of infection. Unfortunately, Max's dialysis nurse and all of his NICU doctors and nurses are in a HUGE disagreement on where Max should go once he is put onto the machine. His attending physician wants him to stay where he is for several reasons, one being that he has more problems that need to be addressed, other than just the dialysis. The dialysis nurse is arguing that she doesn't have the time to train the nurses and that they only like one group of people to know how to use the machine because of the risk of infection. Our arguement is that we want him where he is. Tim and I feel like we have said all that we can to those that will make the final decision. We have trust in his doctors and nurses, so we hope that a silly training schedule isn't going to be what stops him from being where everyone knows him best. And that ladies and gents is all that I am going to say about that :o)

Moving on now... We have also decided to get a g-tube with a nissen placed into Max's stomach. The nissen part of this process is where they will wrap a part of his stomach around his esophagus. This will keep him from spitting up. He will actually not be able to spit up or burp with this technique. Tim and I were against this at first, but his attending physician and several others talked to us about the pros and cons. So we think that, in Max's case, the benefits outweigh the negatives. He had a series of x-rays done this morning to check the anatomy of his upper GI. This was done to show that he, in fact, does have reflux and to be sure that everything is developed correctly, etc. His nurse said that he was smiling at all of the doctors the whole time. She also told us that a security guard was standing at the elevator with her and Max when they were on their way back up to the RCNIC. The security guard said, "He is such a cutie" and started talking to him. Max, of course, began to smile at him. The guard said, "That made my day!" His nurse, smiled and said "He tends to have that affect on people." SO CUTE! Anyway, the g-tube surgery will be sometime next week. This will cause us to have to stop dialysis for 2 days, but this isn't a big deal at all. They will restart him at half of the volume he is at now for a day, then back up to his full volume and hopefully on the cycler the following day.

What else do I need to share? I have one more cute story. Max is beginning to find his voice, so the other day one of the nurses in his pod was talking to him and he was, of course, smiling at her. He then started to "talk" to her and he scared himself. They said that he kind of jumped a little then started looking around to see who it was :o) One more small detail: Max has hit the 10 pound mark! GO CHUNKY MONKEY GO!!! He is SO stinking cute! Anyway, I know that I have been saying this A LOT, but it looks like Max should be home by the end of August. As long as everything that is coming up goes as planned, we should have our family under one roof very soon!

I think that is it. Of course as soon as I hit "publish post" button I will think of something else. Oh well! Keep those prayers coming! We greatly appreciate them!