06/16/2007

Well, where to begin. First of all, Emery is doing pretty well! How great is that? His nitric oxide has been lowered to 0.5 ppm. It's about the most infinitesimal amount of nitric that a human being can receive. Good ol' Dr. A is back in town and stopped by Emery's room today, and he wants to have Emery off of nitric this week, which means we will no longer pay $30,000 a month for Emery to have gas. Yes, he has a flatulence problem, but that's free. The dieticians have switched Emery's feeds a little bit. He gets some formula each day as well as breast milk. I swear I might be the only mother whose breast milk will outlast her child. It's so ironic. I pumped nearly 40 ounces a day, only to have a fluid-restricted child who needs higher proteins and has to have breast milk supplemented. He's also getting 10 mL of water several times a day to help with his urine output. Because of the vomiting he's getting dehydrated. If he can handle those extra fluids then I'm hoping to give him extra breast milk when he comes home and lighten up on some of the dense formulas, but that's still a way off. The docs have been weaning his morphine. He's still puking fairly regularly. In fact, the surgeon walked in last night and Emery launched his lunch across the bed. Erik got it on video. The surgeon's a good sport. He let Erik and I play the video in slow motion and backwards for him a couple of times. All of Emery's owies look very good, and the renal scan was negative for another stone, and the surgeon said his kidneys and anatomy looked better than expected. Emery is a trooper! I forgot the beset part! I am now living in Iowa City. My job has allowed me to work up here out of my guest room and now I get to see just how much my child is abused each day (insert sarcasm). I hate watching him get suctioned. At first the plan was to try high flow at 8 cm of water pressure, which is where he is at on his CPAP and saturating beautifully, but Dr. A thinks it might be best to continue to wean him on the CPAP to about 4 cm of water and then go to nasal cannula. His nose has suffered so much trauma that he's afraid there will be too much swelling for high flow nasal cannula and he doesn't want to set Emery back significantly. We'll see. I'd love to have him on nasal cannula instead of CPAP so say a prayer! Emery weighs just over 11 pounds. He had lost weight from all of the vomiting and lost a bunch of fluids after the surgery, but he seems to be back on track. He hasn't smiled much today but he's sleeping very well. Emery will be 6 months old on Monday. He is 180 days old today! Can you believe this all began 6 months ago? Little love is now porky love, (and Erik and I should own stock in the U of I). Oh, I forgot to tell you all why the elusive Dr. K is so funny. When he was waiting for Emery to be extubated last week he was standing outside Emery's room and looking out the window to the marquis above Kinnick Stadium. He turned around and asked "why is there a party advertised for the Emergency Medical class of 2007 at the stadium?" I said, "oh, they probably just paid for it themselves" amd he said, "the sign should say 'thank you Emery for paying for this stadium,"..... As well he should say that. It costs us $160 an hour just to breathe the same air as him.