Charissa has a great week...

May 23 1:00 PM

Sorry about the long silence... ...I was in Florida for 2 days for our presbytery's college retreat (truly thankful for wonderful colleagues & wonderful students!). Unfortunately, I caught the 24 hour bug and was basically bedridden until this morning... Whew...

Update...

Chase continues to grow. He is currently 2 lbs and 7.5 oz! They have increased his caloric intake and added all the necessary nutrients to mother's milk. They have increased his total intake from 5.5 cc/hr to 6.0 cc/hr (still continuous feed). The head ultrasound continues to look good. The bleeding has stopped and the clot continues to organize. It'll take about 1-2 weeks for the blood to be flushed by his system. He's had a couple of blood transfusions for a low red blood cell count, but nothing dire. He continues on the respirator and the doctor hopes to pull him off of it tomorrow... Breathe Chase, breathe!!

Charissa astounds us. The doctor upped her cortisone levels to help with the low blood pressure. On Monday evening, she was totally off the meds and by Tuesday evening she began to feed, 2cc every 4 hours. She is eating well! The antibiotics have now been discontinued. The doctors are pretty sure that there's no infection. However, they have put her on an anti-fungal medicine just in case. They think a yeast infection might have caused all this blood pressure drama. However, the test for a yeast infection takes 5 days to confirm.

The great news is that Charissa is off the respirator! Wow! She is off the respirator and on the bubble CPAP. This means that her lungs are able to expand on their own. The bubble CPAP just provides the required amount of oxygen. And there's better news. She only requires about 28% oxygen. We breathe 21% oxygen, so the doctors say that it is feasible that she could be off the bubble CPAP in less than a week! She still looks really puffy to us though! After numerous white blood cell transfusions, antibiotics, antifungal, blood pressure meds, her body and head has swelled. We're just waiting for her body to get rid of all the extra liquids. Good news, she's peeing really well!

Oh yeah, because she's off the respirator (i.e. no tube stuck down her throat), my wife was able to hear Charissa cry for the very first time (my wife refused to let me near since I was coming down with a cold). The expression of joy on my wife's face was priceless to me...

The doctors are now going to take her off the cortisone slowly. They think she'll be okay, but there is a small chance that she could have bloodpressure issues again as they wean her off...

Please Pray
1. God continues to engage all our hearts with an acute understanding of the fragility of all our lives!
2. Chase will be able to get off the respirator tomorrow!
3. Chelsea would have no blood pressure issues as they wean her off the cortisone.

God has been extremely gracious by giving us a good 4th week in the lives of our children. They are now 1 month old, but still only 28 weeks 4 days gestation...

Hanging by His Providential thread,
Choi Family