Hercules!

We spent the day with Lincoln, waiting on test results and xray results. Unfortunately they had to place him back on the ventilator. He was having many "spells" and his swollen stomach was pressing on his lungs causing decreased lung volume. Once he was re-intubated his color improved and he was able to rest some since he no longer had to work so hard to breathe. It's such a disappointment since he had been doing sooo well breathing at room air on his cpap. The only positive to it is that we can finally see his beautiful little head and face again without the hat and cpap tubes. He is so handsome and has grown so much since the last time! He gets new xrays every 6 hours to check the status of the 'pneumatosis' meaning the gas bubbles in his intestines that caused NEC. The latest one showed no change.. no improvement but also not getting worse. We were hoping that he would be showing improvement by now but no such luck! He has some blood where he shouldn't so that is another concern but they are watching it. They tried several times today to insert an 'arterial line' which is a tube that goes through a foot or hand and up into his heart. This would alleviate the need to constantly be pricking his heels or arms to draw blood... but they were not successful in their attempts,, they will keep trying... I asked for them to give him a medication for his pain as it was obvious by his grimaces that he was hurting.. they now have him on drip of pain meds and he seemed much more comfortable when we left. Lincoln is such a strong little boy and we are so proud of him for his strength and feistiness! Cole leaves for California tomorrow with Grandma and Grandpa Elswick. We hope he will have a fun and relaxing vacation and not have the worries of home. He gets to visit with his adorable little cousin Isabel and is very excited! We hope next year we will be the ones taking him to visit along with his little brother Lincoln! One thing that did make us smile today was remembering how when we found out we were having a boy we convinced Cole we were naming him either McLovin or Hercules! With the strength and endurance Lincoln has shown maybe Hercules would've been perfect :)! The next few days are going to be very hard as we wait and see the course this new bout of NEC will take but we do know our little boy is a very strong and determined guy that has really shown us what is important in this world...