Improvement

James's morning X-ray showed improvement. (Hooray!) There's still a problem area, but it's smaller than yesterday. We are so happy that things seem to be heading in the right direction.

The boys also had their eyes checked today, and they both seem to be fine. (Bet you didn't know they could read eye charts at this age!) The doctors are looking for ROP, or retinopathy of prematurity. This is a condition that happens when the blood vessels in the eyes develop abnormally. Being on high levels of oxygen is a risk factor for ROP, so our NICU is careful to keep the oxygen saturation levels within certain ranges for babies on supplemental oxygen. (Our boys have mostly been on room air on their CPAPs, especially Matthew -- James has occasionally needed a little extra oxygen boost, but nothing for a long enough duration that they think would be a problem for his eyes.) They have pretty good treatments for ROP these days (laser surgery, for instance), but it used to be a big cause of blindness -- ROP is why Stevie Wonder is blind. In any case, so far so good for our babies.