Big day for a little guy

Josh had a busy day today with not one, but two, echo-cardiograms. The echo showed that his PDA was still significant, even after a week on the ventilator. The doctors and cardiologists decided that it's time to surgically close the PDA. The surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, morning and we will be down there to lend Josh our support and love and have a chat with the pediatric surgeon and his team. After his surgery we will have a Care conference with the NICU team and we hope to see some growth charts and get a debrief of how the surgery went and plot Josh's course for the next couple weeks.

The surgery itself should be rather quick but Josh will have to go under anesthesia. The surgery involves making an incision near Josh's shoulder blade and then when the PDA is in view the surgeon will physically tie it shut. By closing the PDA Josh's lungs should improve and we hope he will be off the ventilator in the near future and breathing on his own with just the help of the c-pap.

Josh is also back on an IV today after not being able to tolerate his feedings very well. For the next few days he will not receive any milk but instead will be fed solely by IV. The doctor's believe that this is also a side effect of the PDA and that the surgery should help his digestive system work properly.

Despite the excitement of the day Josh was able to get some Kangaroo time with mom and did really well out of the Isolette for an hour. He enjoyed looking around and sleeping on mom's chest.