You guys are +++

This is Drew's big fat medical record.

It contains loads of info about Drew: his diagnostic work-up, specialist consultations, daily care plan. And other important details, like the fact that he gets exactly 69mL of breast milk every 3 hours. That's over 500mL per day for a guy weighing just over 3 kg, so essentially he consumes 1/6th of his body weight in fluid each day. To put that into perspective it would be like you or I drinking 9 or 10L of milk per day. As someone who attempted the "Chocolate Milk Challenge" (4L of milk in 1 hr) one lovely Thanksgiving weekend in Lethbridge over 10 years ago, I can attest to the fact that that is certainly not possible. Drew's medical record also contains such critical information as the total weight of every dirty diaper he has had since his birth (I'm tempted to put that into perspective for you as well, but that would require collection of data that even this scientist is hesitant to gather).

Drew's record also contains info about me that I would rather not know, most specifically the frightening details about my labour and delivery. Apparently it was "difficult" with "prolonged second stage labour", "failure to progress" and "delivery by delayed cesarean after two unsuccessful forceps attempts, due to mother's wish" (not sure who that refers to, since this mother certainly never wished for any of this).

And believe it or not, it also has information about you guys, our endlessly supportive family and friends. Because having a sick baby is such a stressful life event, every NICU family is assigned a social worker who assesses the family support network and facilitates access to hospital and community programs like spiritual care, financial assistance, and support groups. Our social worker's report on our personal support network is summed up as: "Karla and David's support is +++".

And we can attest to the fact that this is most certainly the case. For the last three weeks we've had a continuous supply of encouraging emails, prayers, parcels, cards, texts, care packages, meals, coffee cards, phone calls and visitors. And each one has given us the strength to get through another challenging day.

Thank you. This isn't something we could have lived through on our own.

kb