eric seems to be slowly getting better, due in part to his new meds to control his reflux. he's almost completely stopped having milk coming out of his nose and mouth, although we can still see him pursing his lips and making a motion with his mouth that looks like he's chewing; both actions are signs that he still has fluid coming up, but it's a lot less forceful. thankfully, the number of alarms have also gone down and he's gone from having 10 to 20 apnea alarms a day to just one!

he's still showing signs of being overstimulated in his new environment. we expect him to return to "normal" in a day or two or three, but at the moment he's still showing signs of being stressed. if you look close, you can see that his cheek looks "mottled" which is a subtle sign that he's getting too much sensory stimulation.

so, even though everyone is watching eric closely for signs of an infection, it looks like things are returning to normal and with a little luck, he'll be back to his old self, just in time for his hernia surgery. we've been told that he'll definately be having the surgery this week, but we won't know on which day he'll being having the surgery until the schedule is prepared on the prior day. in a way, i'm glad that we've had the chance to get a quick peek into how he recovers from surgery; while the hernia surgery is generally considered to be routine and relatively painless on the wee ones, it's usually more disruptive than rop surgery, as he'll be getting intubated and during the surgery, doctors will need to make two small incisions, which probably won't feel too good after he wakes up.

with all the excitement, it's almost easy to forget that it's eric's 12 week or third lunar birthday! it's hard to believe how much has happened in the past 28 days and with any luck, we won't have to celebrate too many more of these weekly birthdays in the nicu.