Brody made it through surgery this afternoon. He had his gut reconnected as well as his circumcision done. He is on full life support right now and will remain that way for the next 24-48 hours. He is now 6 pounds 4 ounces! He had a follow up eye exam for the ROP yesterday. It looks like his eyes are healing well from surgery but it is still to early to know for sure. The doctor will check again in 2 weeks. The important goals for Brody will be for him to start eating again, 5-7 days and for him to get off the vent and on CPAP. The hope is for him to be able to get back to where he was before surgery today on the vent settings. They will look at putting him in a pedi crib once he is stable and off so much support. He is now one of the bigger babies in NICU III.
The ENT came to check out Gracie yesterday. I was concerned because she has no voice since the last time she was intibated so I asked the Neonatologist to call in the ENT doctor. Turns out, one of her vocal cords is paralyzed. This is due to being intibated the last time. The vocal cords are so sensitive so when they intibate, if they hit the cord, it will damage it. They said that almost every case recovers within one year. The bad part is she is nonvocal. When she tries to cry or make noise, you only hear air. There is also a danger to this, she now has to be held a certain way when being fed so the food does not aspirate into her lungs. The other danger is that I will have to rely on the machines when she is home since she will not be able to cry to get my attention. They are ordering a swallow study on her to make sure she is 100% safe to bottle feed. I also talked more to the doctor about her kidneys. They are still enlarged but there is no urine refluxing back into the kidneys. The reason the kidneys are enlarged is because she had no fluid in the womb. They will continue her on antibiotics for this and hope that they decrease in size. They also worry a little about her creating kidney stones with the type of medications they have to give her. She had her ROP follow up and the doctor said he would check her in one week. Once she is on all 8 bottles, she will be ready to come home. She is currenlty on 2 per day. She weighs 4 pounds 15.5 ounces, just .5 away from 5 pounds!
Madi had her ROP follow up today. The doctor said she is now stage 1 which is great news. Since her eyes are improving, we don't have to go back for two weeks. She did great in the car and had no episodes with As and Bs.
Early Childhood Development will be out next week to work with Madi. They basically asses her and see what services she will need. All three will have a therapist once they are home. Gracie will need a speech therapist since her vocal cord is damaged.
It becomes more evident every day that this will be a long road for the babies but I'm very confident that by the time they are ready for school, they will be on track. I won't stop until it happens!
Krista
(quote from Randy Pausch)
