Discharge meeting and frogs.

Today was a very special day for all of us and Mummy and Daddy have been super excited about it. Today was the day of the discharge meeting. I've already been discharged from Liverpool Women's Hospital and was moved to Macclesfield. So I was excited about being discharged again to see where my next location would be. I couldn't bare not being a part of this meeting so I made sure I timed my feeds to perfection and sneaked into the meeting room attached to my mother's breast.

In this room was a lady from my doctor's surgery, two nurses who will visit me at home, a doctor and one of my special nurses. The conversation went a little like this.

"I don't think Felix is ready to come home yet"
"Oh.....why?"
"We need to wait for him to stop having bradycardias (low heart rates) and desats (low oxygen levels) for a longer period"
"Oh OK"
"Because of Felix's Chronic Lung Disease he is finding it hard to breathe"
"Chronic Lung Disease? Wait.....what's that?" (Mum and Dad looked at each other)
"It's when a baby requires Oxygen for a prolonged period"
"Ah OK"
"We'll keep him on a set-level of Oxygen for a few days and monitor his progress and will review every few days"
"So, when do you think he'll be able to come home?"
"How long is a piece of string?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe a few more weeks, maybe next week?"
"OK, we'll look forward to that."

The rest of the conversation talked about me coming home with oxygen, my brain, how I should stay clear of anyone with any illness (especially colds) and how cute I am. Meeting completed it was time to give my parents some better news.

Thursday is weigh-in day. On Sunday I almost, nearly, but not quite reached the six pound mark. I was five pounds and fourteen ounces. I knew that there was a lot riding on today's weigh-in. A static score like last week would make Doctors scratch their head and I'd be pumped full of vitamins, fortifiers and it would be another bit of not-so-good news for my parents. So today I made myself as big as possible and weighed in at ........ wait for it.....

Six pounds and four ounces!

I had pleased everybody, especially Mum and Dad. They had planned a little surprise for me for when my Nana returned from Portugal but they couldn't wait (serves them right for leaving me!) so dressed me in one of the special outfits they had been saving for this occasion.

This was from my Irish friend Karen and wouldn't you say she has impeccable taste.

We then had music and disco lighting provided by my American friend Jack from www.lifewithjack.com and his beautiful family.

I even had a little dance. 

Once the celebrations were over I had another eye test. The strange man reappeared and tested my eyes again. I was super brave and only cried a little bit and it was over before it had started. The Doctor said that my eyes were "Great" and that I no longer needed my eyes testing.

I'm pleased about that.

Felix x

Dad and the strange man.

Retinopathy of prematurity

My Dad's doing something strange lately. He used to be next to me all the time with my Mum but this week he's been here less and less. When I do see him, he always kisses me on the head and says "Daddy has to go to work" then disappears again. Do you think he's getting bored of me? I mean it could be a possibility.  Lately I have been ignoring him and just sleeping when he's around. He has tried waking me up by pretending I'm a DJ, although that amused him I was just too tired to really put any effort into his games.

He has also started coming at a much earlier time, for the first few days he would pick me up and place me on his lap to sleep, but now he just stares at me. I peek occasionally you see. Mum on the other hand is here even more, she just never goes away. It's actually getting hard pretending to be asleep all the time when she's here so I wake up just after my Daddy goes and my Mum arrives, she changes my nappy washes my face and tries to push something strange inside my mouth. This thing, which is attached to her pillows, amazes me. I just stare at it. It mesmerises me. Hypnotises me. I get sleepy and fall asleep thinking about it. Then I feel something dribbling on my nose, Milk! Where on earth is that coming from?! I open my mouth to see if I can get any and before I know it my face is being squashed onto my Mum's pillows, I can feel something tickle the back of my throat and when I suck, it tastes nice. Did you know that once I sucked for 14 minutes? 14 minutes. I had to pull myself away occasionaly to pant and breathe, but 14 minutes! Round of applause for Mr Felix please.

I went off piste a bit there. Sorry.

Back to my Dad.

My Dad didn't go away today. He arrived with my Mum and helped her change my nappy and things. I thought it was a bit strange but was very happy that he was here so didn't say anything. After one of my feeds a nurse came and tried to open my eyes, she found it difficult as I was pretending to be asleep, so my Dad helped her. When they were open she dropped something into them. It wasn't too bad and over the next hour she returned and did the same thing again. I just put this down to another strange big person ritual and didn't really complain. Just after my parents returned from lunch,  I heard a new voice. This was a deep voice like my Daddy's and he sounded very friendly. I was pushed into a new room (Macclesfield is two rooms, not one like I previously thought) and I heard a door close behind me. Mummy and Daddy weren't here. I don't like it when they aren't here.
The nice man very quickly turned into a monster. With my parents out of the way he grabbed my face and tried to open my eyes. After much resistance he finally got the upper-hand. Before I could close them again he used a hideous contraption to keep them open. He then proceeded to shine a bright light into my eyes. Torture.

I panicked.

I told him everything I knew.

"My parents spilt some of my milk!"

"They wasted some cotton wool!" I tried.

"They put my nappy in the wrong colour bin"

I told them everything I knew but it wasn't enough. I was depleted. I cried, screamed and wailed, half hoping my Dad would kick the door down and take the doctors temperature. That would teach him. But Daddy didn't come, Mummy didn't come. It was useless.
I stopped crying, I was defeated. I passed out.

Five minutes later I felt my eyes close and my world move again. I heard the soft tone of my parents voice, the delicate touch of my Mum's hand and my Dad's wet, sloppy kisses on my forehead. They had saved me! I knew they would. I'm the luckiest boy in the world. It felt great. So great that I had forgotten what had just happened.

Until I saw this picture.

Felix

Dad's comment: 
Felix was fine 10 minutes after this picture, his eye test was also very positive. They were checking whether he had a condition called retinopathy of prematurity.

Luckily, Felix doesn't know that the monster will return in two weeks for his last test (shhhhhhhhhh)