This is a blog for our daughter, Teagan Leigh Balin. She was born June 19, 2011 - three months early and just 1 lb 2 oz and 11.4 inches. This is her (and our) journey home.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Off With Her Cannula!
Teagan Leigh with our wedding rings
Today's post is brought to you by, Papa Ian, Master Cleaner of Baby Bottles. Can you believe Teagan is almost 2 MONTHS OLD!?! Today is Day 60 in the NICU.
Holding Mamma's Finger
The last week has been a bit of a roller coaster. As an experiment, April, our day primary care nurse, decided to take off Teagan's cannula altogether and see how she did. The tape that holds the cannula in place was proving more of an irritation that the oxygen was helping. She handled it well for a full day and a half and is back to low oxygen. We'll try again soon!
Kangaroo Care can work up quite the appetite!
Teagan also had her second eye exam. One of her eyes has stage 1 ROP. The other eye was too immature to tell. Nobody knows entirely what causes ROP, but it mainly happens to premature babies and is due to scar tissue forming on the cornea. If it advances to higher stages such as 3, 4 or 5, it could result in permanent eye damage. The good news is that Stage 1 ROP can sometimes cure itself. If it does advance to a higher stage, they now have a couple different surgeries that have very high success rates in terms of curing the problem.
Should NOT have tried to nurse yet....
Back to the good news. Teagan is now up to 1204 grams, and gaining on a regular basis. This is a bit over 2 and a half pounds. If she keeps this up, we'll have a normal chubby baby on our hands in no time!
We have also been working on getting Teagan's bedroom at home put together. We installed a dimmer switch (with Sam only mildly electrocuting herself) and put together her bassinet. It took under 5 hours and all parties involved were sufficiently impressed.
Our Quality Control Department, Edward
The Master of Disaster with his Allen wrench.
The completed project
Also, Miss Teagan has been spending a lot of time supine (on the back) in her isolette, and the nurses have been picking out cards from friends and family to put on top of the isolette for her to look at. Any new pictures or cards are ALWAYS appreciated!
We have also started reading her Peter Pan, which Sam reads to her on her Kindle. If you have any book recommendations - let us know! Thank you as always for everyone's love and support!!!
This grandma (like the rest of the grandparents) is so in love with Teagan. She is so precious so cute and such a little fighter. All our love, best wishes, prayers, good thoughts go out to you all! Wow, my grandpuppy has really grown, and is quite dapper looking, he looks good in that red chair, ready to be the guard for his little pink hairless sibling when she comes home! All of us have a very precious gift in Teagan, I can't wait to hold her! I must send a card, didn't think that Teagan would even look but she is, so I better send one! Oh you may try reading short Fairy Tale Stories, they are childhood classics..Try not to start the programming too soon, she has bigger fish to fry! LOL...;D Love, Granny Smith!
She is so precious!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing........
Hugs to you all...................
Gayle and Gary
This grandma (like the rest of the grandparents) is so in love with Teagan. She is so precious so cute and such a little fighter. All our love, best wishes, prayers, good thoughts go out to you all! Wow, my grandpuppy has really grown, and is quite dapper looking, he looks good in that red chair, ready to be the guard for his little pink hairless sibling when she comes home! All of us have a very precious gift in Teagan, I can't wait to hold her! I must send a card, didn't think that Teagan would even look but she is, so I better send one! Oh you may try reading short Fairy Tale Stories, they are childhood classics..Try not to start the programming too soon, she has bigger fish to fry! LOL...;D Love, Granny Smith!
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