Dear Ellie,
You've been moving along rather quickly with feedings. You're like a sucking machine, slurping down an entire bottle in about ten to fifteen minutes. I have little doubt that you'll be off the feeding tube entirely in a few days. You do seem to be preferential to bottle feeding over breastfeeding, though. Perhaps you have just grown accustomed to the cold caress of technology and plastic nipples. Either way, once again, your iron gut is proving to be your greatest advantage. On the other hand, your lungs once again have proven to be the opposite.
You have seven more days until week 36 and it looks a bit more dubious now that you'll be off of oxygen before that point. You've been on the low flow canula now for a few days and you seem to have stalled a bit... but of course, before I could finish the prior sentence, the respiratory therapist came and switched you to the last phase of your oxygen weaning: 100 percent oxygen with neutral flow. He's done hooking it up, now, and it seems like you enjoy it. After asking a million questions, I think I've discerned that you are now being given tiny pulses of 100 percent oxygen which is then mixed with the atmosphere each time you breath. In effect, there is no more positive air pressure buffering your lungs open. As of now, you are at 175 ml's of additional oxygen. Hopefully, you'll be down to 0 before the 7 day mark.
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