Baby Lauren is having a good day today. Her oxygen setting is now down to 21%. She is passing a lot of green stool from her stoma - all that poop that had backed up when her bowel was obstructed. She is resting peacefully and only has gotten pain meds twice. Her stomas look good and she is nice and pink. It looks like Lauren's condition is improving.
11/03/01 11:00PM:
Lauren weighed in at 1 lb, 15.5 oz tonight. She is having a good night so far, and her vent settings are not any higher. She is still passing some green stool, a sign that her bowels continue to move even after the surgery. They should be getting rid of the suction to the gastric tube since there is not much stuff coming out of her stomach now. Today is Big Brother's 3rd Birthday -Lauren sends him a very big kiss!!!
11/04/01 10:00AM:
Lauren had a good night and only required pain meds three times. The nurse said that her platelets are a little low, but she is getting Epogen, a medicine that stimulates the production of blood products, so they should come up a bit. If that doesn't work, she might need to have a transfusion of platelets. Lauren's abdomen continues to be somewaht distended, but the surgeon says that she looks like she is recovering well.
11/04/01 9:00PM:
Lauren weighed in at 1 lb, 15.4 oz tonight, and it looks like that is a true weight since she does not have that much swelling. The nurse today found out that Lauren likes to have her hair brushed, so Daddy got to brush her hair - with a TOOTHBRUSH!!! Lauren laid really still and didn't get upset. She looks very nice with her hair parted and neatly brushed... Dr. Bufo said that they would be getting rid of the suction to the gastric tube tomorrow, and if she is OK with that, they might start to feed her through the gastric tube little by little... He is still debating whether he will reverse the ileostomy stoma before she is discharged or whether he will send her home with a stoma and bring her back into the hospital for surgery when she is bigger. The complication rate doubles (but is still only 5%) when stoma reversals are done on kids under 2.5 kilograms (approximately 6 lbs, 5 oz). The deciding factor is how well she is thriving at the time.
11/05/01 NOON:
Lauren had a good night. Today she got a couple of doses of pain meds, but only because she was kicking around so much she was starting to wear herself out. Baby Lauren is as feisty as ever, it seems. They took out the gastric suction tube and inserted a gastric feeding tube today (it goes in through the nose down her esophagus). They have not started feeding her through it yet, but have left it open to see if anything comes out of the stomach on its own. If very little (or nothing) comes out, they will begin "priming" her gut by giving her small amounts of feeds at a time to see how she processes them. Her ventilator settings are now fairly low and she is doing most of the breathing on her own. They will probably start trying to wean her off the vent sometime after they start feeding her. She looks like she is bigger today. Her feet are now almost twice as big as Daddy's thumb (used to be almost the same size) and she now has the beginnings of a second (but really cute) second chin.
11/05/01 9:00PM:
Mommy is at work tonight and got the chance to visit with Lauren. She gave her a bath and brushed her hair. The vent settings are unchanged. Lauren opened her eyes and looked at Mommy tonight after the bath. Tonight Lauren weighed in at a little over 1 lb, 16 oz. For those of you unfamiliar with weights and measures, that means that LAUREN IS A LITTLE OVER TWO POUNDS NOW!!! Although no one has said anything to the effect, nor have we seen it as such in our research, we see this as a sort of milestone for our little girl. Getting (and staying) off the vent, thriving on gastric feeds, and three pounds are some of the future milestones. Little did we imagine how true it was when people told us this was going to be a roller coaster ride. Those highs when she is doing well are awesome, but those lows when she is really sick I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. I pray to God that any problems Lauren might have are overcome and that she countinues to stay as strong as she has been.