The Tank

No, I'm not referring to Nathan, although, at the rate he's gaining weight and growing, we may soon be calling him The Tank.

Actually, I'm referring to the oxygen tank that Nathan's connected to. . . . we had a good visit at the pediatrician's today. Thank you for praying. Nathan is still needing just a bit of oxygen, so he's still connected to the oxygen tank until our next appointment in two weeks, when we will check his progress once again. The doctor doesn't seem concerned at all that he still needs oxygen. The idea is to help his lungs be as strong as possible and keep the saturation level of oxygen in his blood where it should be (at 90 or above). A lot of the issue also has to do with the fact that we live at such a high altitude here in Quito (over 9,300 ft.).

The doctor also weighed Nathan and he weighs in at 10 lbs. 8 oz. which means he gained a pound in the past two weeks and he also grew another 2 1/2 cm - so he's now 56.5 cm long (which is probably around 22 inches). The doctor is very pleased with how is he progressing!

In the next two weeks, Nathan will also have another of the expensive vaccines to help prevent respiratory infections. Because of his weight, he now needs 1 and 1/2 vials of the vaccine. The doctor put us in contact with another family whose premature baby also needs 1 and 1/2 vials so we're going to see if we can share the three vials that we need between the two of us. This will lower the cost by over $400 for both of us.

We will also be making appointments with the pediatric cardiologist and the surgeon who did the surgery on Nathan. These are just follow-up appointments to make sure everything is healed and doing well after the surgery. In the meantime, the doctor told me it would still be wise to stick close to home with Nathan and not take him out much unless it's necessary. So I spend my days at home with Nathan - needless to say, we're very excited to see Santi when he walks in the door in the evening! And Santi is very good about watching Nathan on the weekends while I get out some.

So we have a few things ahead of us still. But God is good and we continue to be amazed at how well Nathan is doing. Seriously, if you didn't know that he had the surgery due to the CDH, you could never tell it by looking at him! He definitely doesn't look like the sick little boy that he was. Again, we give THANKS TO GOD and to all of you who prayed and continue to pray!!!

Here's a couple of photos of the oxygen tank - you'll notice that Nathan is raising his arm in excitement because Daddy's favorite soccer team scored a goal (we were watching the game while Nathan was eating)! Daddy is getting him started early with Latin America's favorite sport!