06/26/2007

Greetings again from Iowa City. I have been cleaning up the care page, so to speak. If any of you have friends or church members who have been deleted from the page, please let me know. I went through and deleted everyone whose e-mail address I didn't recognize. There were 400 'members,' some names I have never seen and people using fake names like 'nutter butters,' so I got rid of over 100 members. Again, if it is a friend or church member, please let me know. I'll see if I can re-add it. Anyway, our little Em is doing well. He is still on nasal cannula at 4 liters and doing well. His blood gases were beautiful! Thursday is blood gas day again, and I think by then we should have an idea of how well he'll do on nasal cannula. Dr. A stopped by tonight and wants to start weaning Emery already, but believe it or not, I --- yes I -- asked if we could hold off a little. He's been working a little harder to breathe and I didn't want to push and have him crap out. As far as the episode, I'm not really sure what happened. I'm not convinced he was over-medicated. He was receiving twice that much morphine and Ativan before the surgery so it didn't seem like it was that. In my completely nonprofessional medical opinion, I think it was a combination of having the fan on in the room, having a few germs, and stopping the theophylline. He doesn't have the baby crack on board jacking up his heart rate. As far as the medical professionals' opinions, it depends entirely on who you ask, though Dr. B and the NP really felt it was a urinary tract infection because of his kidney stone history. Once he was warmed up he was cooing and giggling and acting like Emery. We've had some exciting things happen. I gave him his first bottle, which he hated and gagged and bawled and we have it on video! I wasn't even discouraged at all because we've come so far that it seems pointless to get worked up over it. For once, I'm not freaking out about something. He took about 5 mL by bottle on his first attempt. His second attempt was the same. Yesterday, though, the nurse got him to take 25 mL!! Dr. A said the nurses are great at getting the kids to take bottles, and I'm all for it. We get to try twice a day, and I really would like to try myself once a day, but it's open feeding season for my kid. If you can get him to take a bottle, have at it. Also, tonight, I was trying to feed him his bottle and he thought it was play time/giggle time with Mommy, because he just bit on the bottle and laughed and kicked. Also, I've noticed that any time I hold Emery he falls alseep. He's not really interested in doing any type of work when I'm around, so I'm glad the nurses can and will feed him and know what they're doing. After he took about 5 mL, he gagged and had enough. He wanted his pacifier but not his bottle. Then, he just wanted to snuggle and nap. In some ways, it hasn't been all bad being here. I mean, I get the snuggle times and cuddly times with Emery. The nurses and docs get the hard work. He's also decided to be very angry and upset from about 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. He had to have chloral hydrate today at 2:30 and slept so soundly I didn't even spend a lot of time in his room tonight. I ran some errands instead. His morphine is still being decreased slowly. His weekend nurse came in and wanted to know why he was still getting it and talked the doc into going down on the dose. That was on Saturday. I imagine they will go down here in a few days again. I don't want to take him home on any narcotics if I don't have to. Dr. A and I also talked about a feeding tube for Emery. It's the last option, but if Emery can't take his feeds via bottle before coming home that's probably what we'll do. He felt it was the best option so that way we could help with growth. The physical therapist came by today, too, and she felt Emery was moving 'beautifully' and one of the better long-term babies she had seen in a while!