The surgery went well, and Xerxes was doing pretty good immediately afterward, but later that night and the next morning he started to have problems. He had an episode yesterday morning where he had bronchial spasms and his body clamped down and forced his airways and lungs shut. He de-satted into the 30s briefly. He had to be hand-pumped and ( Read more... )

Xerxes has surgery today.  They're probably going to start in less than an hour.  He's gettting a Nissen fundoplication, which should cure his reflux.  He'll have a gastric feeding tube ("g-tube"), by which he'll be fed, though he will also be able to eat normally, eventually switching over to that full time (though that may take months or even ( Read more... )

Happy Halloween/Samhain everyone!

I found this great article: "Why bother to save Halloween?"

Why bother to save Halloween?
by Richard Seltzer

Halloween is in trouble. Each year editorials in magazines and newspapers and on television warn of dangers to children. And each year more communities "ban" Halloween.

So what? Who needs it? What is ( Read more... )

So, here I am, hanging at the NICU. Tauna and I just had a wonderful French tasting birthday dinner with srprs  -- maybe the best meal I've ever had -- and now he and Tauna are visiting with our almost  six pound baby.

A little update:  After being back on the CPAP and swithing out on the nasal cannula, he went to the CPAP full time, but his little ( Read more... )

Psilocybin gets treated to a Class A study. Go Johns Hopkins!

( Copied for preservation from the link-eating monster... )

They're switching him betweenthe CPAP (seen in icon) and the nasal cannula. (seen here).

I've never seenhim so wide-eyed and alert.  He was really going to townonthe pacifier.  I think the CPAP makes him breathe out his mouth, and then he can't really deal with the pacifier well.  He even seemed to be swallowing pretty decently, though it did seem ( Read more... )

Yes, today Xerxes turns 93 days old, also known as (in this case) Three Months and a Day.  In fact, yesterday was his official due date.  He is over 5 lbs now...I think he was almost 5 lbs, 1 oz on Monday.

He is back on the CPAP, and has been there a while now, at plus five or plus six....he goes up and down.

He is so adorable and cute, and we've ( Read more... )

So I just learned yesterday, a little after 6pm, that the Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) and official Dwarf Planet formerly designated 2003 EL61 (one of three announced by Mike Brown's team at the same time as 2005 FY9 aka MakeMake and 2003 UB313 aka Eris )  had finally received the official name Haumea (on Sep 17th or so, after over three years) on ( Read more... )

Xerxes has moved out of his isolette and into a crib! More pictures on indigo_eris 's most recent post here: Xerxes' Crib.


( Read more... )

Xerxes has graduated to a nasal cannula (those clear breathing tubes old people and people going into surgery wear) as of Wednesday afternoon!!  We just found out when we went in last night!  He seems so much calmer without all the headgear!   His neighbor Cash has already gone to the satellite ward, and he has a new 32-weeker  neighbor named Ryan ( Read more... )