Awaited Update

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the delay in update. Rachel has been very busy as you can imagine and we have not had a chance to catch up on updates.

Ryker has been doing amazing on his "sprints" when he is awake, when he is asleep he does not do well during them. The Dr's think the problem may be that his sedative ativan puts him into too deep of a sleep. They have cut his ativan and methadone dosage in half today. They hope reducing the dosage will help him do better during the sprints while he is asleep. Cutting his dosage in half has caused him to have withdrawals, his forehead sweats and he gags. :(

He is up to full feeds which is fantastic. When he was extubated the first time he was at half feeds, the Dr's think that may have been why his body was unable to cope being extubated. Children's Hospital Boston has an amazing, very expensive and valuable machine that re formulates the breast milk to up the calories rather than having to add formula to the breast milk. There are only 3 hospitals in the US that have this Machine. We are so thankful that Ryker is benefiting from it, it is said breast milk is like gold especially for sick newborn's.

The Dr's will have a meeting Monday to discuss extubation. The soonest they will attempt extubation will be Monday. Please pray that Ryker will be able to stay extubated after the next attempt. The Dr's have given Rachel and Jason a heads up that if he is unable to stay extubated Ryker will have another catheterization and more tests run to rule out what else could be the problem.

Our amazing friend Chris has put together a very touching slideshow for the benefit dinner and we cannot wait to share it will you all. We are also going to try and skype Jason and Rachel in during the dinner. 

If you have not purchased your tickets by going to www.childrenandtheearth.com please do so. Click on the yellow donate button enter the number of tickets you are purchasing.

Thank you to all the amazing people who are helping collect donations to be used during the raffle and auction at Ryker's benefit dinner. Thank you to all the business's and individuals who have made donations. You are all more than amazing.

Thank you for all the overwhelming support!!!!!