Max's car ride to Children's

One of the graduation rites from any NICU is the "car seat test". When a baby is deemed almost ready to go home, his parents bring in his car seat and the NICU team put the baby in it while he's hooked up to a full monitor. The "test" is to see whether he tolerates it or not. Carolyn and I actually got to see a couple of car seat tests in our time at Georgetown, but when Max moved to HSC he did so in the comfort of a "transporter", a device that mimicked a NICU isolette while also appearing capable of withstanding an IED explosion.

So it was a little surprising when the HSC team put Max into a perfectly ordinary car seat for his ride to Children's hospital. He, Carolyn and a nurse took Max (in an HSC van) to Children's Hospital for a CT scan. Max tolerated his time in the car seat quite well, so I guess he passed a real-life version of the car seat test.

Max's trip to Children's today was the first of three planned for this week: tomorrow he and I go to see a pediatric neurosurgeon and on Wednesday he will be getting another barium study of his ability to swallow. At tomorrow's meeting, we'll find out whether he's a candidate for an indwelling shunt to control his hydrocephalus.

Carolyn reports that Max really enjoyed his car ride. He was very calm throughout, and stared out the window at the world going by. Here's a picture of Max looking out the van window.