Starting To Gain Strength

An early report today! My parents have Riley at the moment, so I thought this to be an opportune time to send today's update.

Nolan's day was good! They are VERY slowly weaning his sedation. I am pretty sure they completely took him off one either last night or the day before, and have a few more to go. Moving slowly has proven to work for him, so they are planning on staying the course. He is also on very little oxygen. He could probably be taken off of that, however being on the sedation and having that little bit of o2 helps while he sleeps. SLOW AND STEADY.

The past few days he has had very little drainage from his second chest drain and the doctors said the X-ray looked great, so they removed the drain. Anything invasive they can pull out is great because it eliminates any chance for infection. Besides his VAD, I am pretty sure the only other line he has is a standard IV line which is running his Heparin...also his feeding tube. So, those are the two left. (Beside the VAD, which is a pretty amazing site. I am pretty sure Matt hasn't even braved to look at it yet.)

Nolan has also started physical therapy to begin regaining his strength. Matt said he did well today. They placed some hanging toys above him to work on his hand/eye coordination and have been sitting him up to gain some core strength. Can you believe this little guy? He just had open heart surgery less than two weeks ago, has two large cannulas coming out of his body from under his rib cage and he is tolerating all this movement. My hero. I hear that his daddy has also start some exercising having ran 8 miles today. You both amaze me.

All in all a great day for Nolan, so I guess that makes it a great day for us. I can't WAIT to have my family all under one roof. You never really know how good you have it until it is taken away from you so fast. I would take waking up every hour with Nolan to have everyone here healthy and safe. I can't wait until we get that day again!

I have had many people come up to me about my updates and what an inspiration Nolan is. I promise when I say this, I knew something was going to be different with him, I just didn't know in what way. I thought since he was a preemie that this was what my instinct was tell me, but I guess not. I am pretty sure he will be inspiring people throughout his entire life - whatever it is he does. Even though this situation really (ready? I am going to say it...) SUCKS, there is a lot of good that has come out of it. I love my family more, I love my friends more and I truly love my life more. It may be sad right now, but at the end of the day, it has changed everything for the better.

I am off to see some of my wonderful girlfriends tonight - and I can't wait. Then maybe snuggle my lil' gal again (sorry Matt!)

ONE MORE DAY CLOSER!

#nhos