Dr. Alemany update

Dr. Alemany called a few minutes ago. I was at the hospital for an hour after lunch but I did not see him then so he called to update me on Brandon. He said that he lowered Brandon's rate on the ventilator. It was set at 50 yesterday (gives him 50 breaths a minute) and today it is at 45. He said Brandon was doing great on his feedings. He is up to 17 cc's today. I spoke to Sue last night when I was there and told her that I had brought some of the frozen breast milk with me. I mentioned that now that he is eating as much as he is I am going to have a hard time keeping up with him pumping since most of the time I only get 15 cc's which is a half ounce. She suggested starting to mix the breast milk with formula so that Brandon tolerates the formula easier when he is on 100% formula which will probably be a few more weeks and also so that the breast milk lasts a little longer. She tried it last night at his midnight feeding by mixing 1/3 formula with 2/3 breast milk and he tolerated it well. He also did well with the 3:00 am feeding so at the 6:00 am feeding she did half breast milk and half formula and he did well with that too. So he will stay at half of each until I am out of breast milk. I will continue to pump until I am out of the frozen. Dr. Alemany also said that over the next week they are going to start lowering Brandon's support on the ventilator and that by this weekend or next week they will probably try him off the ventilator and see how he does. He said Brandon looks so good that he is hopeful he will do well off.