Matthew update:

A quick update on Matthew:

He has made a big improvement from two weeks ago. He is still not out of the woods, but he is doing much better then he was.

Two weeks ago they had to put him on a different ventilator to help him breath easier. They were able to take it off and he has just been on the original vent for about a week now. They did change out his ventilator cannula to a "new" one. (It has been around for years, but they have changed they way it works and operates now).
It is responds to neuro receptors instead of diaphragm receptors and makes it a lot more comfortable for him. The respiratory therapists say he likes it better and is more comfortable.

As you all probably already know I was able to hold Matthew for the first time on Sunday night. He was 26 days old. It was the best feeling in the world. I was able to hold him for about an hour. He just sank into my chest and fell into a deep sleep. The nurses said they had never seen him so relaxed before. They only thing that would have made it better is if Jim could have held him too. He still has not held him. It was a huge production to get him and all of his wires and tubes moved so I could hold him.

He is doing much better then he was, but he is still not out of the woods. They have not been able to feed him anything for about 3 weeks. He has a very enlarged esophagus and refluxes very bad. He ended up with pneumonia because of this. That was one of the reasons he had such a bad week two weeks ago. So the Doctors say that this can not happen again. So they have not fed him anything but IV fluids. With that they feel he needs another surgery. This surgery is called a fundoplication, it is simply them taking the top part of the stomach and wrapping it around the esophagus and stitching it around it. This will not allow anything from the stomach to come back up. Yes, that does mean he will not be able to vomit. One of the side effects of this procedure. We are not sure when this surgery will take place. Possibly as early as Saturday this week. But more then likely it will be Monday. We are not looking forward to another surgery, but it is necessary to get Matt moving in the right direction. He needs to be able to eat to grow and get stronger so he can be closer to coming home. The doctors still have not even tried to guess when Matt could possibly come home. Our best guess is at least another 4-6 weeks. That is with 2 weeks for recovery and then 2 weeks for getting stronger and getting feedings where they want them and then 2 more weeks to ween everything off they need to ween.
So as you can see we still have a long road ahead of us.

I guess that wasn't really a quick update, but an update none the less. Thank you all for your continues support. We couldn't do this without it.

Love,
Jaime