Tuesday, October 26, 2010

I got back to Ann Arbor around 9:00 am this morning. Caleb was not in his room so I checked in at the nurse's station. He was not scheduled to be gone, he was walking the floor with his nurse and the student nurse. Out on a date with older women!

When he got back, the nurse and nurse practioner went over today's agenda. His medications are now pretty stable, except they are trying to wean his Methadone. That seems to be working much better this time. I guess it is easier to be less fussy when you can breathe.

Today's feeding change was to go to three hour bolus feeding. They did the first three hour feed on the pump and the ones after that with the gravity method. The gravity method involves placing a syringe above him and letting the milk drain into his stomach through the NG tube. The higher the syringe, the faster the flow. He has tolerated all of the feeding changes very well.

Today was Mom Training Day. I took infant CPR this morning, learned how and when to give him his medications and feedings and learned to remove and insert an NG tube. I was kind of worried about the NG tube because you have to thread it through his nose and get it into his stomach. It is actually not that bad. Of course Caleb screams, but he screams when you change his diaper too. Caleb's scream sounds like the squeal a baby pig makes when you catch it by the leg. Needless to say, when Caleb is mad, everyone knows it.

Basically, all that is left is his car seat test and his circumcision. The car seat test consists of putting the baby in the car seat and monitoring his oxygen saturation, heart rate and breathing rate. There is a study going on at U of M to determine if heart babies are more likely to have problems riding in car seats because of airway and heart issues. Everyone participates in the study because it seems kind of stupid to spend all of the time and effort to repair the baby's heart and then have them stop breathing in the car seat. The circumcision thing seems like a really mean thing to do, but if we don't do it now, it will be a REALLY mean thing to do later.

Right now, the plan is to discharge Caleb on Thursday, not Friday. If everything goes well tomorrow, we should be on track. I, for one, would be just fine with going home one day earlier than expected!