We have lots of great things to report today.

Most importantly, Sol is no longer on any respiratory support. Yay! They removed all oxygen at 1pm today, after we’d had a couple of therapy sessions. We hope that he will continue to breathe easily on his own overnight and in the days to come so this extra support is no longer needed.

The other great news is that as Solomon goes up on his feed levels (he’s working up from 40ml at each feeding to 50ml), he will no longer need IV supplements. Over the next couple of days, the staff will try moving him to oral anti-seizure medications (currently given via IV) so we can also say goodbye to IVs as well.

Today, Mike and I met with Michelle from Occupational Therapy so she could teach us hands-on techniques to strengthen Sol’s muscles and range of motion. We also discussed some ways to try getting Sol to track right with his eyes. At the end of our session, we worked on tummy time, which Sol didn’t like at all. I think he’ll like it much better when he’s at home and has cute puppies to watch.

Melissa with Speech Therapy then met with us to do Sol’s full evaluation. She started out by testing his sucking reflexes, which showed us he was up for the challenge. She then tried getting him to suck on a pacifier by first dipping it into milk – success! The next step is to try a bottle, which we’ll be able to do once he’s off of oxygen for 24 hours. This could happen as soon as tomorrow. One thing that I noticed was while Sol sucked on his pacifier, he started to move his eyes around! He seems to like this new stimulation.

The only speed bump we hit today was learning that Sol showed signs of a seizure last night. Since he was hooked up to the EEG, the neurologist will be able to determine if these signs were in fact correlated to a seizure. The last time he was on the EEG, we had similar reports from the nurses, but later found those activities were not related to seizures, so we hope this round will have a similar result.

Tomorrow will call for another head ultrasound, the results of the EEG, and more Speech and Occupational Therapy. Let’s keep these good days coming!