Last day in El Paso with Noah

Today is our last day in El Paso. Soon we will be packing and checking out of the hotel. Our flight isn't until 6:30 pm MDT, but we must have the rental car back at the airport by 1:00 pm to avoid additional charges. Jon may follow me to the airport to return it, then take us back to the hospital for one last visit, but I'm not sure yet how all of that is going to work out.

It has been a better week than I expected. I wouldn't trade having come out and spent time with Noah and his parents for anything. Many of you know we have had a rocky start in our relationship with Chantay, but I think we built some major inroads with each other this week. I'm very thankful for that.

Noah is still in the NICU, and probably will be for a couple more weeks. The collodion membrane has to completely finish peeling off before he can go home, and they want him to be taking 50 cc per feeding, and maintaining his body temperature.  The peeling has certainly begun and is well underway, but still may take another week or two to complete. His eating has much improved over the past week, but a case of thrush has impacted it negatively, and so he currently has a feeding tube to supplement what he is taking by nursing. He's still not quite back to his birth weight of 4 pounds, 15 ounces.

We were told yesterday that some time in the next couple of weeks he will need to be checked for cataracts, which occur sometime in collodion babies. I never thought my grandchild could get cataracts before I did. We pray that he won't have them, but I'm confident that they can be taken care of in due course if he does.

Last night was the first time Terri and I got to hold him, and only for a couple of minutes each. We both have been able to apply lotion to him, and to help with diaper changes while he is in his incubator. But the nursing staff really wants him in the incubator when he isn't being nursed, and only Chantay is equipped for that task. But since we were coming to the end of our time here, Chantay made sure we got the chance to hold him last night.

It's going to be hard to leave them today, but we have responsibilities back home, and living out of a hotel, eating out and driving a rental car gets expensive quickly. I look forward to being back with our church family and getting back to a normal routine, but I definitely will be leaving a part of myself in this desert.