Sick Week 2011 Continues

Well this cold is still going strong at our house. It has slowly moved from Luke to Jonathin and I. However he has the worse of it. The sniffles turn into coughing throughout the night. I swear it sounds like he has been smoking a pack a day for 10 years when he really gets going. I learned a very valuable lesson last night. If you have been keeping up with Luke's sleeping habits you know that he "is one" with his swing. Luke refuses to sleep before Craig Ferguson comes on. I however, must sleep before 12:30am. So into his swing he goes around 11PM during the local news. He swings wide eyed till finally falling asleep. I however, am out as soon as my head hits the pillow. Well, the past few nights Luke has been sleeping without the swing on his Boppy pillow. Last night we returned to the swing for the evening. Luke was out like a light when I woke up at 2am and for some reason in my sleep deprived mind I thought it would be better to move him out of the swing. Here me now....NEVER MOVE A HAPPY BABY! For the next 3 hours we had crying, coughing, sniffling, and screaming. It turned into one long night. So as I type this now, Luke is asleep in his swing, hopefully for a good couple hours.

I'm waiting for the day I go to the swing and push the button and it doesn't move! It has been the best investment that we have made for Luke. Those NICU nurses and other moms in Module 1 at Riley weren't kidding. Sooner or later I know the swing will have swung it's last swing. However, Jonathin has already informed me that we will buy a new swing less than 2 hours after this one breaks...hahaha!

So being a nursing student and after being surrounded by all this medicine the past 5 months I can't get over that there is nothing for Luke's cold. I laid in bed last night during the coughing mentally going through my notes. The only things we can do for him is saline drops to help clear some stuffiness, the dreaded nose sucker, and his vaporizer. I have a feeling that his new friend is his Ellie the Elephant vaporizer. I'm happy if it is actually doing something for him, however I hate the mess that it makes. After just one night, the white dusting is already getting to me. It isn't like I can clean the bedroom all the time. Especially with Jonathin sleeping during the day, but watch me try.

I'm just throwing this out there to the other preemie mom's....did your child have problems with gas and ieregularity. I am so perturbed with this little man. I mean some days we are going all the time when he passes gas just a little at a time. Then other times we go a couple days and are in complete pain with constant gas. His developmentalist has him taking Miralax daily in a bottle, however he wasn't taking it while on his antibiotics. His body didn't play well with his medication. Originally, we thought it was the Similac Neosure that he is on. Especially since we add extra calories worth of formula, however now I just think it is him. I hear it can be that his prematurity is still the problem, but I'm praying for some regularity for his sake.

Tomorrow starts the return of studying for school. I will return to school in January. For 8 weeks I will be going to Gary twice a week for a little over 2 hours. However it will be a 2 hour drive there and another 2 hours home. I don't know what day, but there is definitely going to be some schedule juggling going on here. Then another 8 weeks after that, I will be keeping this same schedule, but adding 2 more days of leaving at 5am and getting home around 7pm. I worst part is the fact that I have no other option. I will lose my credits if I don't continue now. I also have been put off by the South Bend campus on trying to transfer. SOOO I'm left to finish out in Gary. The one good thing, I will done with school before Luke's first birthday. Then finally I can get into a clinic or hospital and work with the world that has surrounded my life over the past 5 months. When I started the nursing school process 2 years ago, I figured I would go into labor and delivery or pediatrics. Now there is no other place I will go. I feel like there is so much information and piece of mind I can share with others in the same place we have been. As much as those have helped the past few months, you really don't understand things till you yourself have lived it. I hope once everything has calmed down and school is finally over we can get move involved in the preemie community.

Jonathin and I treated ourselves to a new camera for our Christmas to help chronical Luke's growth. Don't get us wrong, the cell phones were great, but now the pictures might look a little better. So I added a few testers from this week as I "break" it in. The dogs thought they needed a little facetime also.

Jordan

Nap time on the Boppy

Snug as a Bug

Luke and his sound machine giraffe

A scheduled afternoon nap for Zbi

Lola Bug

Only a face a dad could love, and sometimes a mom