A Breath of Fresh Air

Today when Henry and I went to see Parker we noticed something was missing. He no longer has a breathing tube!  He is now breathing on his own.  He was extubated (removal of the breathing tube) at about 830 this morning.   This was very encouraging to Henry and I and we are very excited. This was the first time I got to see his entire face.  He is much more handsome when he doesn’t have a tube down his throat.  They also started the warming process today.  He is still only about 91 degrees Fahrenheit but getting warmer slowly.    We spoke with the doctor and she said he is doing well but still not out of the woods.  He doesn’t have a gag reflux and does not cough but that might just be because he is cold.  His blood work is also not normal but the doctor thinks it is because of a bad specimen. They will redraw the labs tomorrow and see how it looks.  They were especially concerned about his red blood cell count.  We will know more tomorrow.  His chest x-ray looks practically normal.  It will get better once he cries and coughs.  We are very excited to hear him cry.  The doctor said best case scenario he probably will not be able to go home until next Friday.  There are many things he needs to be able to do before he can go home. She said he needs to be able to breath, eat, potty, poop, and keep his temp. at a normal temp.  The eating part will probably be the thing that keeps him there. Because he has been cold for so long his digestive system has not received much blood so it is basically not working. Once he gets warm it can take up to 5 days to really start working.  It will be so exciting to feed him.

On another note Yeet Fai (Parkers middle name) basically means exceedingly bright future and smart.