2 mo. old!!

Today we celebrate 2 mo. with Buddy! He is continuing to surprise us with his growth and development. He has more alert moments, and feeding more through nursing and bottle. I think he is somewhere around 40% of his feeds he is taking without a feeding tube. He needs to be at 100% before he can go home.

Last night as we were about to leave a doctor pulled us aside and wanted to have a conversation with us about something they had recently learned in this week's blood work.

Harrison's new born blood screening showed a barely normal thyroid hormone level. It warranted another screening at 8 weeks. So they learned that his thyroid hormone level is in the normal state. This is very, very good news. Up to this point he has not missed a beat. Everything that the thyroid does and tells other systems to do has been happening. He is growing and everything in his endocrine system is clicking.

The one number that was off was his Thyroid Signaling Hormone (TSH). TSH basically stimulates the thyroid to function and keep functioning. Harrison's TSH level was high. High enough to address immediately. He will be taking a synthetic thyroid hormone that will lower this number to help re-calibrate his body. This is one pill per day. And he will need to take this pill for the first year of his life until he is mature enough to come off of it, and see if his body has re-calibrated and okay on its own.

We have been affirmed that he has not been effected developmentally because his thyroid hormone is normal and functioning and will not be effected developmentally because they are treating him. Had they not caught this they would be concerned.

They are attributing this TSH # being off solely due to his prematurity and nothing else at this point. In a year we will re-evaluate with a pediatrician and endocrinologist.

This is definitely something to pray about but we are comforted by the nurses who know Harrison and think that based on all his great progress and development they don't think its anything significant.

Worst case scenario he takes a pill a day for a long time. Best case scenario he takes a pill for around a year.

Another great thing is today he was put on the low-flow cannula. The least amount of respiratory assistance. He has been doing great the last 2 weeks on the cannula and they have been lowering periodically his pressure the past 2 weeks. Today he is basically receiving O2 with no pressure. He will continue to be on the low-flow through his stay and we have been informed he will probably be on O2 until he reaches sea level at home.

Happy 2 mo. Buddy! We love you.