Not Home Yet....

Well, we are all still at Rex.  But, Jess has been discharged, she is doing great.  Mr. Cade is doing great aside from his bilirubin levels, and he is even beating those like Jacksonville State beat Ole Miss.  They crept up to 18.1, then using the double photo-therapy, they went down to 17.6, then to 16.3, then to 13.4 this morning.  We thought we were in the clear at that point, 15 is the Mendoza line so to speak for infant jaundice.  However, when you take away one of the photo sources, there is a little bounce back up to higher levels.  So we took away the overhead lamp this morning around 10:00, and he just got his blood drawn for another check.  This one will be with him only on the bili-blanket, so the level will likely be higher, but hopefully it is not too high.

We want his liver to keep "learning" how to break down all the extra red blood cells.  Each time we take a "helping" source away, he has to learn to work harder to make up the difference.  Think about it like this: You are being pushed in a wheel chair, hardly doing any work yourself.  You are going 20 mph, and that is good.  The person pushing stops helping so much, maybe only giving half the effort as before...so now you obviously slow down while you figure out how to do more of the work yourself, but you do learn and get back to going the normal speed.  Well, the guy pushing the wheel chair is like the bili-lights, and Cade's liver is like the guy in the wheel chair.  So we expect a slight rise in levels with these results, but not too high...we don't want the wheel chair to come to almost a stand still.

So here we are, in a new room (smaller by the way) with the same lovely pull our chair for Dad to sleep in.  We are hoping and praying that Cade can keep working and his levels drop back down late tonight and early tomorrow morning.  Then, we will take the bili-blanket off too, and let him figure out how to do it all on his own.  If all that happens, we can go home late tomorrow afternoon.  If he needs a little more time to figure it all out, which is fine, then we may be here again tomorrow night.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, as usual, I will keep you update via this blog.

Love,

Time, Jess, and Cade