"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
--Jeremiah 29:11

Monday, April 21, 2008

Contagious

I guess I've been hanging out with Connie too much as the doctor has put ME on heart medicine! My heart is fine, but he feels like my 'sinus' problems are really migraines so I'm restarting meds for high blood pressure as a preventative. The beta blocker, Atenolol, should help. We'll see. I say restarting because I was put on Inderal, a similar drug, back in 2000 to control/prevent migraines. I stopped taking it sometime in late 2003 as my headaches were virtually non-existent at that time. I have a crazy bad cold or sinus infection or something along those lines and thought I should probably see the doc since it's been off and on for at least a month. I thought he'd give me an antibiotic and send me on my way. Boy, was I surprised?! After talking more he came up with this theory. I'd think he was off his rocker except for the fact that my beloved sudafed and tylenol have not been touching the 'sinus' headaches I've been having lately.

Connie's doing well and doesn't seem the least bit phased by the procedure he had last week. I'll just be glad when he can finally have a real bath again! He HATES sponge baths. . .and he's terrified of having his hair washed in the sink. The last one he got he literally got so mad and worked up that he threw up. It made me think, "Was it worth it?" I mean, we bathe him so he doesn't smell like puke and he pukes shortly after the bathing so maybe it's not worth putting him through the torture of it all :)

He has been really snotty lately (clear, like always). With this, we typically see a reduction in his oral intake (like from barely nothing to nothing!) and an increase in his vomiting. This time is no different. But today I saw two new teeth, incisors, I think, popping through. Hopefully once they are in a bit more this congestion and drainage problem will go away. Teething seems to be the only explanation we ever can come up with for these symptoms. We are in the process of weaning him off of breastmilk completely and working toward the goal of getting him off of the overnight feed. He now gets his new formula, Peptamin Jr., at 100% strength for the overnight feed. His daytime feeds are at 25% Peptamin Jr. and 75% breastmilk. We'll do this until Friday or so and then try him at 50/50 for a week and then 75/25 and then hopefully by the end of May he's at 100% Peptamin Jr. 4X/day and nothing overnight. The Peptamin his a lot higher calories per ounce than breastmilk so he won't need quite the volume. We're also hoping that he'll wake up hungry in the morning once he's not getting fed throughout the night so he might be more motivated to try to eat orally. This is a long process and quite trying on the patience. I've been weaning down on pumping and digging into my freezer stash of breastmilk. I'm now only pumping once a day and hope to be done soon. Since I'm on that new medication, I have to dump all the milk I pump :( I told you all we'd need that stuff in the freezer! We were told at his last OT session not to be surprised if he still has this tube a year from now. Many people have been asking lately, and I have been growing impatient with his progress, so I just thought I'd tell you where he's at with that and what we have been told to expect. I'm just thrilled that he's doing so well cardiac-wise because the longer we can put off surgery, I think the better chance he has of coming around on eating. If he's got unpleasant stuff going on and people are putting things in and on him that don't feel good, it's that much longer before he trusts us that it's okay to eat. So, it's a good thing that it looks like we're in the clear for several years that way. Thanks for looking in!

1 comment:

H. James said...

Great video! He looks like a very normal and healthy little boy! Hope the teeth come through soon and he gets less snotty. And hope headaches improve, too! Hopefully the transition to all day feeds and off breastmilk goes smoothly and you can stop pumping. I imagine that will be a big burden gone for mama!
Thanks for the updates.
-Heather James