Thursday, July 8, 2010

So how is Peter?

The short answer is “good”, but of course that won't be much of a blog entry considering how long it's been since I've written.

Peter has been completely off supplemental oxygen for a couple of weeks. This allowed some doctor's appointments to be canceled. Yeah! We still have to hold onto the equipment for at least three months in case he gets a cold or something and needs the oxygen. It was all shoved into the closet the same day we found out he didn't need it anymore. The closet is the most spacious room we have in our flat anyways.

We did have a concern about Peter's eyes. Randomly, Peter's eyes began to jiggle vertically. This is called a nystagmus. We got an appointment with the ophthalmologist that did the surgery on Peter's eyes while he was in the neonatal unit. The ophthalmologist examined Peter's eyes and said that physically Peter's eyes were great, perhaps a little nearsighted, but fine. He referred us then to a neurologist who had Peter get an ultrasound of his brain. It looked like there might have been too much fluid in his brain that may have been caused by a blockage in the ventricales, fluid, of the brain. This can happen to a premature baby because some bleeding in the brain happens at a premature delivery. This blood can cause a blockage in the flow of the fluid in the brain. This type of blockage could have caused the nystagmus, but could also lead to worse things. They talked about the fact that Peter may need a shunt from his brain to his stomach to drain the fluid. After an MRI, which is much clearer than an ultrasound, it was discovered that there was no blockage and no unusual build up of fluid in the brain. His head will continue to be measured for unusual enlarging and we will continue to have check-ups with the neurologist. All this to say that they don't know what is causing the nystagmus, so they need to wait and see what happens. As of the writing of this blog, the nystagmus has become less frequent and we are very confident that it isn't effecting his vision substantially.

According to the check-ups Peter has had, everything from his heart to his growth is all very good. He is catching up to the size he should be and he has a great appetite to help. We have introduced him to baby food according to his birth age as we were instructed. Since developmentally he isn't as far as a normal baby is when eating the first time, like in sitting up and developing teeth, we are staying with smooth food for a little while. Developmentally he is progressing according the his gestational age (his due date age). He is a little ahead in the use of his hands and how much he babbles, but slightly slow in holding his head up. This is not unusually for even a term baby, but the doctor's are kind of holding Peter under a microscope looking for the first smallest sign of trouble.

Other than all the doctor's appointments, vitamins, and strange developmental timing, Peter is just a normal baby...sort of.

1 comment:

  1. Disagree... he's a miracle baby AND your baby and that makes him superior to normal. Glad all things are going well with all of you!

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