Monday, May 30, 2005

George got to meet his great-grandmother, Mamaw, yesterday. She had been waiting a long time to meet him! She was impressed with his size and cuteness.

George has been home five weeks now. Wow, the weeks are flying by!

Saturday, May 28, 2005

George is five months old today! Wow, he has come a long way in five months. Way to go, George!

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

George is 21 weeks old today. Hard to believe he's been home for four weeks!

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Age: 20 weeks
Weight: 11 pounds 11 ounces
Adjusted age (measured from his due date): 5 weeks

George has been doing well these past few days. He continues to notice his surroundings more and more. He's getting stronger, and pushes around a lot when held.

George saw Dr. Caldwell (his pediatrician) today. Here's how that cute boy looked when he got home:

Dr. Caldwell gave George permission to go visit his Mamaw (great-grandmother). We'll probably take him on the 29th.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

George had a great visit with pediatric pulmonologist Dr. Scalo today. (Dr. Scalo is Dr. Glomb's partner.) As a result, George is off Albuterol and Flovent, and his oxygen is now halved to 1/4 liter per minute. This is great news. Even Dr. Scalo commented on how, once George started to improve several weeks ago, his progress has been excellent.

We go back in a month, and if all goes well, at that point George can say goodbye to the nasal cannula and respiration monitor.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Yesterday George had a follow-up eye exam with Dr. Hyde. Good news: George's ROP continues to recede, and no long-term vision problems are anticipated. We go back again in two weeks.

Tomorrow we have an important appointment with George's pediatric pulmonologist, Dr. Glomb. If things go well, perhaps we can decrease his supplemental oxygen.

Friday, May 6, 2005

Today we finally (on our fourth blood draw this week) got a good reading for George's potassium. Yesterday's draw from the second lab was bad as well, so today Dr. Berry drew the blood in his office. Even with his expertise, it took 30 minutes to find a suitable blood vessel. The readings for today's blood looked completely normal, thank goodness.

Why were the other three blood tests bad? Dr. Berry is convinced that the three bad samples were collected in a manner that roughed up the blood, breaking red blood cells, releasing extra potassium into the rest of the blood. As result, the measured potassium was too high.

Also, today George had a follow-up visit with Dr. Josephs, who performed George's hernia surgery back on April 12. Everything looks great!

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

George weighs 10 pounds 14 ounces. :-)

George's routine blood work revealed a very high potassium level, so today we went to see Dr. Phillip Berry, a nephrologist.

After reviewing the lab results and George's extensive medical history, Dr. Berry thinks that the lab results are incorrect. To see if he's right, we're taking George to a different lab tomorrow for the same blood test.

Turns out Dr. Berry is Dr. Landers' husband. As you may recall, Dr. Landers was the neonatologist at George's birth.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

George is doing very nicely at home. The three of us have spent the last week getting used to his eating and sleeping schedules, and we're certainly still adjusting. We parents could not be happier.

Friday George had his first visit with his pediatrician, Dr. William Caldwell. They got along swimmingly.

I'm truly convinced George gets cuter every day.