Tubin' it no more

Wow. What a difference 24 hours makes. Simon is now off all sedatives and pain killers, has had 2 IVs taken out and been fed breast milk 2x via his feeding tube.

Oh yeah, and at 10:30 am, Simon got his breathing tube out!!!!

He was a little punky right after and then just took off with flying colors. He's back. Nurses have been walking by saying, "Oh! Now he sort of looks like that baby in the pictures!" We've been in incredibly high spirits.

Laura, Laura's father and I have all gotten to hold him for hours. They took his blood gasses right after he got off the machine and they were OK, but then, after we'd held him for a few hours, they took them again and when our nurse got the results, she actually cheered out loud because they were so good. She said they were so good because of the holding and we'd like to agree.

We've had 3 new nurses today and all have been fantastic. Louanne was our nurse starting this morning and she was a total mother hen and correctly remembered which of us was "Mama" and which of us is "Mommy"- something we sometimes can't even remember. Then we had Cissel, the sweet Norweigan and now we have Kathy, the super sassy blonde with a shoe fetish who is the blonde version of our favorite night nurse, Carol.

A few highlights:
- Today our friend Eric goes to security desk to get a visitor tag. Security guard at hospital with 191 beds says, "let me guess-for the Fitch-Jenett baby?".

- Respiratory therapist chats with me at the sink and says, "wow, do you guys come from really big families or something?" I reply that I'm an only child of an only child of an only child and she shakes her head in amazement and says, "We have so many babies in here with NO visitors. You guys have a village. " I just smiled and said, "yes, we do."

- Turns out that our friend from the dog park is the head of oncology here and has been totally briefed on our situation, his patients often have this condition and he's trained 1/2 the doctors we're working with. He'll be by every day to check on things and made it clear he'll kick ass if need be (we've had the MOST amazing care so it won't be necessary)

- We're the favorite hang out spot for all the queer staff (of which there are evidently many), including the super cute resident, Dan, who is totally George from Grey's Anatomy, but gay.

- We're estimating that Simon has over 10,000 people (including 8,000 Buddhists) sending him love, praying for him, visualizing health for him and that know about him.

- Simon has had *32* visitors and he's only been here for 5 days.

- Our friend Joan's colleague at the Native American AIDS project made him a dream catcher with Hawk and Eagle feathers and their drum circle has a song just for him they'll sing every Monday and Tuesday until he's out of the hospital.

- We've put up signs in the waiting room with his picture saying that his Mommies want to share the love and support that they're getting while he's here and to PLEASE eat the food we've left out. We've gotten incredible feedback from other people waiting here that they're really appreciating the overflow of love and food.

-Dr. Mohler, the pediatrician who admitted him at John Muir, came here to see him on Saturday just because we made such an impression on her and she lives in our neighborhood. We reminded her so much of a family she worked with years ago during her residency here. The baby had the same condition and is A-OK now!

Bottom line...we have a super long road ahead of us, but we are at least on the road now. There may be setbacks, but the extubation was a big test and so far Shimmy is passing and it looks like it's only going to get better from here. Nurses keep commenting on how obviously loved he is and how much it's helping his healing. They see all ends of the spectrum and I'm going to take their word as Gospel and ask y'all to keep it coming.

I keep visualizing this intense force field around him just pulsing with a low "thrum-thrum" sound. He's so present now. It's delicious. We honestly don't know that he would be at this high point without all the goodness coming at him.

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.