September 30, 2008: Day 30 (A new home)

The NICU completed all the staph cultures and today the babies were rearranged according to whether they were infected with staph or not and according to which type of bacteria they had. The staph outbreak was limited to only a few babies. Aidan was moved along with his neighbor from our little private corner of the NICU to a spot in the center of the NICU. The two boys have the same bacteria, which has shown some resistance to antibiotics. Three other babies have a more garden-variety staph and they have been moved to the corner where Aidan used to be. Denyse likes the new spot because there is more room to move around and for chairs.

The day time visit was a little stressful for Denyse because there was a lot going on with Aidan. The CIDC doctor (Center for Infectious Disease Control) said that they want to completely eradicate the strain of bacteria that Aidan has because they don't want it to hang around for long. It has the potential to make these babies sick. Aidan was given a bath with a special kind of soap to kill any bacteria on his skin. We had to remove all his bedding, clothing and stuffed animals to be washed and dried. The nurses also replaced his bed with a new one, known as NICU 1:


Yes, the picture is upside-down...

Aidan is also now on nose drops for the next three days. After the antibiotics are out of his system they will test again for the bacteria. Once these tests come up clean Aidan will be taken out of isolation. Here's our new home:



Looks a lot like our old home, doesn't it?

To add to the stress, Denyse held Aidan for a couple of hours before this with a super leaky CPAP. I'm sure he will be zonked for the rest of the day.

This evening we had Lee for one more night:



At tonight's weighing, Aidan gained 40 grams to 1400 grams (3 lbs 1.4 oz). After his 10pm cares, he was really zonked:





We also found out that they did Aidan's first ROP test on his eyes, and everything came back normal!! Woohoo!!