Slowly But Surely

Things are starting to settle down a bit here. Dominic was finally moved up to a regular patient floor around 4:00 this afternoon. He also had a CT scan that Mike and I are anxious to see tomorrow. It's got to look sort of strange with only half of a brain in his head. Dominic's swelling has gone down quite a bit as well. They removed his arterial line and catheter today so all he has left as a regular IV and his two drains, plus the pulse/oxygen and heart monitor. Hopefully one of the drains will come out tomorrow morning when they re-wrap his head.

Removing his arterial line...ouch!

It's sort of gross how they stitch it to his wrist

Dominic seems to be doing well, no fever or illness that we can tell. Best of all, NO SEIZURES! He is still on morphine, Tylenol 3 and Motrin for the pain, but he's drinking fine and not complaining too much, although no interest yet in baby food. I know I'm getting ahead of myself and probably expecting too much of him, but I just want to see him smile. He is very lethargic and sleeps most of the days and nights. He does look back and forth between Mike and I, but I swear that he's scowling at us. Poor baby, I'm sure he's in a lot of pain and doped up on pain meds, but I just really want to see my sweet, happy baby again. He can move his right side a little, when stimulated, but he's got an IV in that arm so I wouldn't expect him to move it much anyways. He's not moving a lot on his left side either to be honest. I tried holding him today because I thought being such a snuggler, maybe he just needed some Mama lovin'. But that really upset him and I think it was really painful to try to move him that much. So, all I can do is rub his arms, belly and legs and kiss his little face for now.

Some sweet lamb volunteer made him this quilt :o)

And the signs are from his brother and cousins

The neurosurgery team said that once the first drain comes out tomorrow they would like to begin inpatient physical therapy. Not sure what they can do with him if it hurts to try to pick him up, but I guess they know what they're doing. Mike and I have moved into the Ronald McDonald house, which is a little closer to the hospital and a lot nicer than the guest house we were staying in. It's nice to be able to have a space to go besides the hospital room and have somewhere to eat, shower and hopefully one of these days, take a nap.

A visit from Uncle Steve and the kiddos

Kids aren't allowed back int he ICU (boo) but they came to show support!

Thank you to everyone for your continued prayers, emails, blog posts, texts and voice messages. We could not do this without everyone's support. We strongly believe that Dominic will do great things and that he has come this far because of everyone's faithful prayers.