Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Miles From Home

Our son continues to get good grades at NICU school. Today Miles graduated from the ventilator and is now breathing largely under his own power (with a little help from the CPAP machine). Not surprisingly, he seems more comfortable now without the ventilator tube.

We're getting to know the NICU staff pretty well, and they are very attentive to Miles. (More than one nurse has noted that he is "feisty".) As his parents, Lisa and I get very generous visiting privileges (23 out of 24 hours a day), and we hope to spend as much time as we can there without annoying him.

As ready as we were to leave the hospital this afternoon (in Lisa's case, after 24 days' continuous confinement), it was a bittersweet feeling knowing that Miles had to stay behind and do his time in NICU. Home will not truly feel like home until he is here to share it with us.

Still, it was a treat to drive Lisa home today and watch her stare out the windows, overwhelmed by the stimuli, like a castaway returning to civilization. We have a new appreciation for the comforts of one's own home.

-Dean

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