Wednesday & Thursday Update

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

All in all today was a pretty good day. Since he was just being monitored for the day, I went to work and left Kevin to take care of Nathan. Kevin said that Nathan was pretty fussy for about half of the day but then he was in a pretty good mood the later part of the day. I got up to the hospital about 4:15 and as i headed down the hallway to his room, he was walking with Grandpa to meet me. It took him about 5 mins to realize i was standing in front of him because he was too busy checking out all the nurses. Once he realized i was standing in front of him, he got the biggest smile and was so excited to see me. He has pretty much refused the bottle, so pretty much 99% of his feedings are through the tube. He kept all of the feeds down except for his 11PM feeding. About 1/2 way through his 11PM feed, he just gagged and threw it all up. And since he had to stop all food at midnight because of his MRI in the morning, we decided to not finish the feeding because we did not want to upset his stomach more.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Kevin and I slept pretty good last night but the nurse came in to let us know that transport was on their way to pick him up. I couldn't believe that Kevin and I had slept till 8AM but when i looked at the clock, it was actually 6:30AM. So as i was trying to wake up, our nurse was talking to Nathan and he was just laughing and cooing at her. He is such a flirt! He got into an even better mood when he realized his favorite transport lady was taking him down for his MRI. So we got down to the 2nd floor and into one of the cubicles to await the nurse to take us into the MRI room. The transport lady came back to give Nathan a bag which contained a smaller bag of frogs that Nathan can take into the tub with him. He was so excited to yet get another new toy. The anesthesiologist came in and started getting the tools they needed to put him asleep. They said that we could stay until they put him to sleep. We thought it was really weird that we got to stay but we were excited too that we could stay with him till he got to sleep. I really wish I would have been able to videotape how fast it was before he was out. They laid him on the gurney and the one doctor started putting the medication into his IV and the other doctor had the oxygen mask by his nose. Nathan was talking and trying to grab the oxygen mask and within like 20 seconds he let out this big yawn and was out. It kind of freaked us out cuz his eyes were still open. Like i said, i really really wish we could have video taped it. But the doctor said the MRI could take anywhere between an hour to 3 hours depending on the shots they got. So we went into the waiting room and i think Kevin and i pretty much passed out the entire time we were in there. The MRI took about an hour and a half. After the MRI was over, we were told we could go up to the room till he was brought up. Transport brought him up about 20 mins after we got to the room. He was pretty fussy when he got up to the room so i held him for a while. We got to feed him and he did pretty well and kept it down. He was still fussy when my mom, his grandma, came in the room but once he heard her voice, he got really excited and started laughing. She definitely has the magic touch.

Later on in the day Kevin and his dad wanted to take Nathan for a walk but we were instructed to stay in our rooms because there was an incident down the hall from us. Not really sure what happened but security and Detroit Police were up here and they escorted a couple from the room. We've now changed his eating habits again and we really think its going to work. The new feeding schedule is that during the day he will need to consume 8oz of formula whether by bottle or mixed with cereal. They have also upped his calorie intake from 24 calories to 27 calories. He will have to eat a 4oz jar of baby food (fruit) twice a day and a 2-4oz jar of baby food (vegetable) twice a day. Then at night he will get 13 oz of formula through his G Tube over a 10 hour period. We really think that this is going to help because he really loves anything by spoon and refuses to take the bottle. We decided to try squash for the first time today and he absolutely loved it.
We got the test results back from his stool sample and that came back negative and the results from the MD blood test came back negative as well. Later in the day we got the (unofficial) results of the MRI and that came back PERFECT! We will get the official results back tomorrow. Dr. Ferguson came by to see how Nathan was doing so i decided to ask him if he could give us an estimate on when we could come home. He said that if he does well with this overnight feed and gains some weight, he could probably come home Saturday or Sunday. That was like music to my ears. Dr. Holtrop came in and says she has something in mind that she kind of wants to ponder overnight and she will get back to me tomorrow to let me know if its something that may work. She is really trying to avoid changing the G Tube to the JG Tube, which will make it go to his small intestine rather than his stomach.

Auntie Lindsay showed up around 5:45 tonight and Monkey was so excited to see her. She brought him this really cool Christmas Bear. He is wearing a hat and scarf...Too cute! They played and he was smiling and laughing. He was so excited to see her after she had been gone for so long. As i type this, Lindsay and I are watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while Nathan is sleeping as well as getting his first overnight feeding through his tube. So far so good!

That's it for now. I will post again tomorrow evening!