Its nice to be home. I got to spend more time with Alex today than I have in the last two weeks. He's clearly been confused by the constant coming of going of all his loved ones, and I'm looking forward to getting him back into a stable routine.
We really want to thank everyone who expressed concernand offered any help we required. An extra special thanks to Cathy, Gary, and Pat for their time off work and away from their lives to help us juggle this whole ordeal.
Any way, we're back home, and Sona is doing well. Back to the normal routine... I'm finally breathing out.
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( 3 / 41 )It's now Friday and we still have managed to dodge that second surgery. The upper GI we did earlier in the week showed that perhaps her stretched out stomach just wasn.t strong enough to contract and push the food through the now open pyloris muscle. The new doctor in charge suggested a "wait and see" approach to give her poor stomach time to shrink down and heal.
The IV gave her all her fluids and the tube through her nose sucked out her stomach and kept it free of agitation. Finally, yesterday morning, the tubes were all removed and Sona started eating small amounts of food.
It's now been a full day on food and the many wet or dirty diapers suggest she is processing some or all of what she's eating. The amount of food has slowly increased over the last 24 hours up to 2oz bottles. We're hoping she can make it all the way to the 3oz bottles scheduled for this afternoon. If so that might mean we get to go home with a healthy baby tomorrow.
As a special treat I picked up Silver Spur BBQ for our dinner last night. The service was horrible, but the food was awesome!
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( 2.9 / 36 )We thought we were out of the woods, but we're right back where we started. Sona checked into the hospital again yesterday afternoon because her stomach is still not draining fast enough. The docs think her surgery was incomplete (which is extremely rare from what they tell us), so she's now hooked up to an IV and has a tube in her nose tghat vaccuums out her stomach. This has kept her hydrated and taken the pressure off her tummy. She seems generally hapy except for the annoying tube in the middle of her face.
Carrie stayed here last night and I went home to take care of Alex. Tonight I think we'll do the reverse.
Originally they wanted to repeat the surgery ASAP but we got a second opinion and now we're holding off for a few days, hoping that if we give her poor stomach time to recover we may be able to avoid surgery altogether. So for now it's wait and see.
In the meantime I'm missing even more work, but both the President and the General Manager are out all week also, so my absense may go almost unnoticed... wouldn't that be grand.
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( 3 / 37 )What a difference a night makes. Yesterday I was exhausted and after Sona started showing signs of not tollerating her 9pm feeding I rolled into bed expecting another rough night. I woke up at 5am to find out we'd all slept peacefully all night, and Sona had a massive poop filled diaper. She was in bed, perfectly happy. The nurse took her temp and it had dropped from the 102 degree fever to 97ish; that's the lowest its been since surgery!
Since she was awake and happy I fed her and she happily gulped down the entire 2oz bottle, burping well the whole time. Then she made a big happy yawn and went back to sleep. I guess a good dump really cures all.
At any rate we still have a long day ahead of us, but I'm really hopeful for the first time that we'll be going home with a moderately happy baby soon. Just in time for the work week.... joy !
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( 2.7 / 19 )
We're still here at the hospital. Sona's feedings yesterday ended in one massive puke containing all of here prior feedings from the last 15 hours. Then in the middle of the night the vein her IV was in failed and it took several hours and a lot of stabbing to get another IV going. It was a long night and the result is that we might not be released until tomorrow. Fingers crossed.Meanwhile, Grandma and Grandpa came up to help out even more. Grandma taged in for Carrie, so she's at home sleeping right now (lucky girl) and I'm here helping Grandma inbetween my own naps (lucky me). I also have a serious caffine headache... please bring me coffee.
We're trying the feedings all over again. If she tolerates the food better this time we'll be going home. So far she's doing ok, but we're not out of the woods yet.
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( 0 / 0 )The surgery went well, and the early stages of recovery were ok as well. To test her stomach's ability to handle food again they have her on a feeding schedule. The first feeding was 1oz of formula, as was the second feeding three hours later. Then came two 1.5oz feedings also three hours apart. We've just finished those. Two more 2 oz feedings to go at 9am and noon today, then in theory we can go home.
I can't wait for it all to be done. Sona normally eats 5oz bottles, and she hasn't eaten in 2 days now, so these little snacks are just pissing her off. Plus I'm sure she has some lingering pain from the surgery which would explain why she hardly sleeps and mostly cries. I want my own bed again, and I want to put her in real clothes with no wires or tubes attached. Noon can't come soon enough.
Meanwhile Alex is staying at my Mom and Dad's house in Racine. They have really helped out with him during this entire ordeal. They usually help out a lot, but this is beyond the norm. Thanks guys! I miss my boy though, can we have him back soon please?
One last piece of news, I'm posting this article from my brand new Dell Mini , thanks to my pal Noah. He's a champ, and so is my new tiny laptop.
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( 4 / 1 )After a day spent at the doctors office, followed by the ER, we are now at Children's Hospital with Sona, preparing for surgery. A nice radiology technician finally discovered the reason for Sona's forceful and frequent vomiting... it's pyloric stenosis . Basically she has a muscle that's over grown and it isn't allowing her stomach to drain normally, so the body drains the stomach through the alternate exit (aka the mouth).
The surgery is fairly common and in theory should go quickly and smoothly. After that it'll be one more night in the hospital on the most uncomfortable hide-a-bed in the world, and then home! It'l be nice to have this all behind us. In the mean time though I'm very sore and very tired. I can only imagine how Sona is feeling. Being a kid sucks.
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