Avoiding the OR again.

Today was a good day. (knock on wood). Tyler was very happy on his hi-flow setting at room air and a little bit of pressure. He is back on his feeds and is advancing daily. His head circumference is also staying steady.

Tyler was fed at noon today. I got to hold him for the next hour and he got very restless. He started smacking his lips and trying to put his hand in his mouth, wanted to suck on something so we gave him a binky. He went to town on it. We started to talk about offering him milk from the source. Ultrasound came in and I had to put him to bed. While they were scanning his head, we decided if Tyler was still awake we try it. Well he knew what to do. He latched on and started to suck away. He is unable to suck and breathe well enough to take a full feed yet. Everyone was ecstatic hear that he did latch on, most preemie's don't start putting that together for another couple of weeks. After a good 20 minutes of a suck here and there he finally settled out and fell contently asleep.

On the medical front, we also had a good day. We spent most of the day waiting for the results of the ultrasound. Ultrasound comes to bed side when they feel like and the radiologist reads the scan on their schedule as well. So we left for dinner at 5pm tonight and met the attending Dr in the hall. He had seen the scan on file but the official read wasn't in yet. We chatted a few minutes saying the ventricles were not significantly smaller than they were before. There isn't a clear path to take and the 3 of us decided we needed to hear from the neurosurgeon to make a decision about Tuesday's OR reservation. Again we had a slot in OR scheduled just in case we needed it. Around 7pm we got a phone call from the neurosurgeon. She was very confident that waiting is Tyler's best option at the moment. She got an official read and the ventricles are slightly smaller than his last ultrasound. He isn't exhibiting symptoms of building pressure; hard fontanel, spreading sutures, severe A's and B's, change in personality and feeds. All things he was exhibiting last week and not this weekend since the antibiotics and head tap. The risks of surgery now out weigh the risks of waiting. So Friday we will have another ultrasound and re-assess his head again. So if Tyler stays symptom free and the ultrasound on Friday comes back looking no worse we may squeak out of surgery.

So Ben and I are going to take our chance and go home Tuesday for a couple of days. Of course if they think Tyler needs us to rush back for surgery we will.