Step Down

We are officially blogging from the cardiac step down unit! Yeah! We were able to start holding Stockton again on Wednesday. It was so nice to hold our baby after a long week of just looking at him. I can't believe things are moving so fast. They took us to the step down unit yesterday and it is so nice to stay with him during the night. The past 2 weeks we have been staying at the Ronald McDonald House which has been such a blessing. The doctors are still worried about his kidney function. Usually, they like to see kidney function post heart surgery at 50-60%. Stockton's kidneys are only working about 25% but seem to be doing better everyday. Stockton seems to have his nights and days mixed up. Our first night with him left me exhausted and I didn't sleep hardly at all. He is still getting continuous tube feedings but I got to feed him a bottle today for the first time. The occupational therapists are trying to build his mouth muscles because he has never received anything by mouth. He is doing such a great job and they are really impressed. Bottle feeding is our only obstacle from going home. I can't believe it. I am so scared to bring him home. Sometimes I get really frustrated with the way they do things at the hospital. I have really started to speak up about how I want things done. I get really irritated when they don't cluster their activities. Just this morning Stockton had a EKG, a echocardiagram, an x-ray, 2 doctors visits, a PICC line specialist visit, occupational therapy, a bath and a few other things. From 4am until about 9:30am he was bugged every half hour and it was getting really irritating. I finally told them that they needed to start clustering stuff because it really pissed me off that they would wake him up every time he had just fallen asleep. You can't forget that the nurse is taking his vitals every four hours and random alarms are going off. I think I got a little short with people today but I don't care. Another thing I mentioned to them was about some adhesive remover. Sometimes the staff will just take off his leads that are stuck to his skin without using the adhesive remover. HELLO! Obviously he is crying and it hurts him. That drives me crazy! All of his tests he took today came back normal and the doctors are really pleased. Dr. McKenzie came by today and he said Stockton looks great. I love Dr. McKenzie. He is truly a miracle worker. Well, that is all for now. We just want our little guy to start gaining some weight!