Improvement

His morning labs were normal. That got us released to the peds floor.
It's like moving from a no-tell motel to a Westin. It's a large room with set up like a mini suite. And there's a bathroom. THANK GOD FOR INDOOR PLUMBING.

And yes, I had an icee.

We seem to have turned a corner on the peeing and the pain. His last 4 diapers have been soakers and he's now getting regular Tylenol only.

And really, not even the Tylenol since he's not digesting it.

They have his tummy vented. Basically a tube hooked to his G tube site to let the air escape so it doesn't build up and hurt. Of course, gastric juices also come out.
When she gave him the Tylenol late this morning, she closed the tube for about 45 minutes to let it absorb. When she opened it again it came shooting right out again.

he has started passing quite a lot of gas this afternoon, so I'm really hoping that his guts are starting to wake up. but for now he's still NPO.

Right now they're not saying when we can go home. Certainly not today. I'm holding out hope that his guts start working and he starts eating and digesting and we can go home tomorrow. But I'm getting a lot of comments like "in a day or two." so it may be longer.

GI did finally round this afternoon. First the NP came in. Now, I really LIKE the NP, so I was a little let down, but was still determined to bring up my frustrations.
I had just said "Dr. GI acted like I was crazy when I...." and who should walk in but Dr. GI herself.

I said "oooooh.. we were JUST talking about you."

She launched right into basically giving me info I already had and I think was going to leave, but I wasn't having it.

I said that she had told me that he was too young for adhesions but Dr. Surgeon said he removed several. Then I just let it hang.

She was quiet a moment and finally said "well, it is quite rare. We just don't see adhesions in NICU babies that have surgery." Then she added that they've only seen two babies with hiatal hernias and basically insinuated that maybe he's rare in more than just that way.

I gave her a disapproving look and asked if this was likely to happen again. I was trying to make the point that perhaps we could be a little proactive in diagnosing problems.

She nodded and said that yes, if his eating improves and then declines again, we'd certainly do a gastric following study to see if there was a narrowing somewhere or indications of adhesions. And yes, because it's happened once, he is slightly more likely to have it happen again.

Anyway, right now we're just hanging out waiting for his guts to truly wake up. I'm hoping now that he's off the massive pain killers and moving around quite a bit more, that'll speed up.

At least we're both far more comfortable now. I'm not done worrying yet.. certainly he needs to get things moving so he can be nourished again, but I have less things to be worried about now. We're moving in the right direction.

--Trish