The amazing team supporting Thomas

Thomas is still going strong. He's now being fed 3mls of milk every two hours. This doesn't sound very much but by increasing the milk flow slowly, hopefully the intestine will start working again and won't rupture. Yesterday, grandma Brenda had a lovely cuddle with Thomas as she's come all the way from Cumbria to see him.

Since Thomas became ill, you will have noticed that this took up all the editorial space in the blog so there has been little room for any other information. Now he's hopefully improving, we thought you'd like to know more about the unit. Thomas is still in the intensive care unit and is known as the old man of the ward as he's been in there for the longest. He has lots of friends in the ward including Oscar and Tom who are situated in the incubators next to him. Tom is one of the twins, you might remember that his brother Jack was very ill and had to be sent to London for an operation on his tummy because he also had NEC. Jack has now returned and was upgraded yesterday to the next room because he's doing so well.

Thomas is looked after by lots of nurses who are usually senior staff nurses or sisters. They encourage mummy and daddy to change Thomas' nappy, clean his face and mouth and give him lots of cuddles. They are also excellent fun to be around, always happy and extremely helpful. There are around 7 or 8 nurses on each shift of 12½ hours and altogether around 40 nurses. Consultants work two week stints at a time, handing over to another consultant at night and at the weekend (sometimes they work through). There are five consultants in total and a team of 20 doctors providing 24 hour care.

Now you've learnt a little bit about the unit, here's another photo of the little boy they're looking after having his mouth cleaned!!