a bit of a delay with this post

Hi all
sorry for the delay in this post but there wasn't much to report until yesterday and neither of us had the energy to update before now.

Patrick had a good weekend really. He became more aware with each day and was happy to have a play when we took him out of his cot.

Yesterday was the best day for a long while and early on Gemma noticed that he was both willing and able to suck on her finger! Straight away she asked the staff if would be okay for her to try him on a bottle and was given the go ahead.

He took longer than usual but he did manage to drain the lot, much to Mummy's extreme pleasure. I think that the loss of feeding Patrick was one of those things that Gemma had really mourned, so she was over the moon. He ended up feeding from then on and continues to do so. Gem was also able to give him a proper bath too and during his towell down, his gastric tube came out. Pure accident but the staff decided that because he was feeding normally, he didn't really need it in anymore so it was left out. That was another little milestone too as it was the last invasive tubing that was left. He now just has a stick on probe for his pulse and oxygen saturation monitor now.

One thing that has become evident is that whatever routine we had at home with Patrick is now long gone and he has been entertaining Gemma through the night and allowing her to have very peaceful days while he sleeps. How kind he is! I think that will change as soon as Gemma can make it!

I have not been able to get to the hospital as much as I would like because I have had a serious bout of 'boy - flu' as Gemma sympathetically calls it. While Patrick was in the High Dependency Unit, we felt it would be very selfish for me to go in and risk passing any infection to the other kiddies there. Patrick was being filled with anti biotics for his chest infection so he would not have been at risk but we didn't know the status of the other poorly ones.

Anyway, all back to normal now and Martyr that I am, I can resume my proper visiting.

I have added a couple of pictures of our little fighter so you can all see how ell he looks now. All we are waiting for is the EEG result so we can find out the next stage of the plan.

Keep checking in with us here for updates which I hope to get done a bit more frequently. Love to everyone,
from the Conyard mob
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