Information as of: 7/24/03

• Actual Age: 1 month and 21 days old (7 weeks 2 days)
• Gestational Age: 30 weeks and 2 days (this is how far along I am if I was still in my mommy's belly)
• Corrected Age: -2 months and 9 days (this is how old I am if I had been born on mommy's due date, Oct. 1 2003)
• Weight: 1107 grams or about 2 pounds 7 ounces
• Length: 32 cm
• Head Circumference: 25 cm
• Current Issues my doctors are working on:
  • Lungs:
    Even though they are better than they used to be, I am still on the Conventional Vent. I will probably be on the vent till they fix my belly (see below). I currently have moderate-mild chronic lung disease. This means I will might have asthma when I get older and get colds easier. See, my lungs will keep growing till I am age 3! So, while I have immature lungs right now, I will have time to recover. My lungs will never look like other people's, but they will be normal for me! Mommy knows lots of kids with asthma who didn't have all the problems I do! So, if that is the only lasting effect, that isn't too bad! Now that my PDA is no longer acting up, my vent settings have really come down low. They are talking about extubating me with a little help from a short course of steriods! (this means they take away my vent and I have to breathe on my own. I will still have a little help with something called a C-Pap, but no more vent!) They would obviously have to re-intubate me for the belly surgery in 1-2 weeks, but if I can breathe on my own for at least 1 week, my really smart doctor (Dr. Trautman) seems to think it will be worth it. And he warned that I still might have to go to the ocsillator vent after my surgery depending on how "puffy" I get.
  • Belly:
    My belly got a tear in it when my bowels stopped working because I had a bad infection! But, the doctors made me better from the infection and my tear healed itself. BUT, when I healed, I got a scar that is now blocking part of my bowels. So, now I will have to have surgery-- but luckily not for a few more weeks. I will be sick for awhile after the surgery, but I am a fighter and will fight hard afterwords. There is a chance that long term I will have trouble getting all my nutrition (short bowel syndrom) and mommy and daddy will have to make me eat a lot or my growth could be stunted! But, the surgery will otherwise fix my bowels so that when I am in kindergarten, I shouldn't be any different than my friends! The doctors are talking about setting the bowel surgery for the first week or so in August.
  • Brain:
    Well, in this area we just got some concerning news. After my 7 week ultrasound, we found out that my body is growing faster than my brain (between my 5 week ultrasound and 7 week ultrasound I got my first growth spurt)! This might be a beign phenomeon because I was so very small where my brain will eventually catch up (they say about 24 months of age). It could also be indicative of some brain injury (though if it is, we can't tell for sure or have any idea how much). Or, it could be a progressive issue where the brain will get worse. So, with only one ultrasound showing this (we could tell because there was more fluid between my skull and my brain than there was in the last ultrasound), all we really know is that I am still at risk (some babies like me have completely normal ultrasounds all the way through but have severe problems anyways as they grow up and some kids who have one or more concerning ultrasounds turn out normal) and we won't know whether I will have problems until I start missing milestones (things I should do at certain times like sitting up and crawling). If it is progressive, we might know when I get my next ultrasound in about 1 1/2 weeks. So, I will definitely need some more time to catch up to other kids my age, but there is still chance I will catch up with my peers.
  • Infections / Immune System:
    Well, the doctors don't know if I really had a second staph infection when I was 5 weeks old as explained on a previous update. I had one positive culture, but one doctor thinks that the culture was contaminated and the other doctor thinks I really had it! The good news is, that I don't have it anymore. All my subsequent cultures have been negative and I am acting like I feel better! Lets hope that I stay that way. Infections are not fun! The last infection I had (when I was 3-4 weeks old) was rare and called polly sepsis. This means that I had 2 different cutties at the exact same time (a type of staph and an ecoli). Most little guys like me don't make it through that kind of a hit- 2 bugs at once! But, I fought them off, though I scared my mommy and daddy real bad at one point. I am off all antibiotics now, so this is really not a problem. I will remove this area from my list of problems on the next post!
  • Eyes:
    My eyes are open now! They were closed (fused shut) when I was born. I might have something called ROP. Lots of preemies have it. It means that I could be blind- but that most likely I will just have to have laser surgery and wear glasses. We don't know if I have ROP yet, I might not. But, I can see something! Mommy caught me looking at my hand today. I was wondering was it was and why it moved when I thought it should move! I had my second eye exam July 21, 2003 but the doctors couldn't tell anything because I am still too small. I really hate it when they put those drops in my eyes! But, they will do it again now next week till they can see something! They said that little guys like me can take up to 10 weeks old to be able to see something, so my mommy and daddy shouldn't worry!