December 14th update..

Caleb is struggling with the ability to use his lungs. The problem is that his lungs are so immature that it's hard for him to make his lungs take the oxygen he's receiving and put it into his blood. To help with the process they have him on a ventilator that pumps up to 100% oxygen into his lungs. The air we breathe is about 21% oxygen. He would not be able to survive without the oxygen they are giving him. To determine if the oxygen is getting into the blood they have monitors that check his blood oxygen saturation.

Yesterday morning the oxygen saturation was not good. They decided to give him nitric oxide to see if that would help with saturation and thankfully it did. Since he cannot stay on oxygen indefinitely, the goal is to decrease his dependency on the oxygen and the ventilator. So now every two to three hours they are drawing a small amount of blood to test all of the gasses that are present in his blood. Depending on those readings they either increase or decrease the support he receives from the ventilator. Yesterday was a bit of up and down with re guard to that support. Yesterday morning the support was maxed out. As the day went on they were able to reduce the support from the ventilator. Unfortunately not all of those reductions have been permanent. They might make a reduction in support and then two hours later increase the support to the former level. As of last night he was not at the highest level of support that he was at yesterday morning but also not at the least amount of support for the day. This up and down is probably how it's going to be for the next several days and possibly weeks.

Caleb had a better night last night. Leah and Zeb wanted to thank you for your prayers. 

I love you baby Caleb. Keep fighting. You are in every thought and prayer.

xoxo

Auntie Angie