The Latest

After speaking for a long while with the nurse practitioner, looks like we have a timeline for the rest of our stay at lovely Children's. Here are the facts:

Emma Kate is having some respiratory issues. She has a cold. She is coughing a bunch and trying to break up the mucus in her chest.

Her x-rays looked less "hazy" today. The haziness they see on the films is fluid. It is not bad, its just something that needs to go away. She is on several diuretics (three, I believe) to help flush all these fluids out of her body.

The respiratory therapist comes in a few times a day to give her "love pats" as Brooks calls them. He uses this little round, black instrument to pat her chest and back. This helps break up the congestion in her lungs, which opens her airways up.

Her sats are looking good. Usually in the low 80s.

She has not thrown up for 26 hours and 45 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!

She has graduated from half-strength formula (half pedialyte/half Portagen) on continuous feeds (non-stop flow of her feed through the ng tube) to full-strength on continuous feeds at a snail's pace (30ml or about 1 ounce per hour). So far she is doing fine, but it has only been about an hour since the full-strength Portagen has been going. PLEASE PRAY THAT SHE KEEPS THIS DOWN! This will be key to the next step!

Once she has tolerated the full-strength Portagen for 24 hours, they will probably start bolus feeds via the ng tube (larger amounts of formula in a shorter length of time). Then we can attempt feeding her by mouth. We will have to see if she will take the Portagen. They say it is nasty-tasting stuff. However, initially, she wolfed the stuff down. I wonder now if it is because she was starving after surgery. We will have to wait and find out.

She is currently taking Zantac for reflux. They are going to add Prevacid twice a day today and then take her off the Zantac completely. The Prevacid doesn't act immediately in her system, it will take a few doses before it starts working.

So... hopefully, if we are on-track and she meets all her little milestones we are possibly looking at going home on Friday! Thanks for praying and I will update as we know more!