Well, whatever all of you did, it worked. Will responded well to everything that was being thrown at him today. He is far from being out of the woods on this, but he was so much better today than yesterday. Before, and even into the late morning, the slightest disturbance would send his oxygenation levels spiralling downward, and it would take a good half-hour for him to recover. When they're coming in to do something every 15 minutes or so, you can imagine how taxing that is on such a little guy.

This afternoon, however, he was much better able to tolerate these interruptions. From about 1:30 p.m. until after 3, he underwent a kidney ultrasound (which had good results), another heart ultrasound (the PDA is still closed), an X-ray and a visit from the hospital's Catholic chaplain to be baptized, in addition to all the usual diaper changes, blood draws and other things. Through it all, he kept his oxygen really well, and seemed to take it much more in stride. A constant morphine drip helped, of course, but it seemed as if he finally is responding to some of these drugs; it seems each is designed to do something on its own as well as to counteract some ill effect caused by everything else. He has all four grandparents in town keeping an eye on him as well.

So, he's in a lot better shape now than he was at this time last night, and better than we had a right to hope for given the way the doctors were talking this morning. It continues to be a struggle for him, but each day means his systems are that much more mature. We've been taking it a day at a time; the doctors today were talking about taking it minutes at a time. However you mark it, we just keep moving slowly forward.