Happy Birthday

Today was Brandon and Katelyn’s 5 month Birthday. (Technically it was yesterday because I’m writing this after midnight). We’ve been busy and it’s been a while since I posted.

Katelyn is doing well. She is growing and become more and more active all of the time. She still hasn’t changed her mind on the bottle. She won’t have a thing to do with it, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t quit. Every once in a while she surprises me and takes a lot but it has been a while since she has done that. She has learned to sleep through the night on some nights so our sleep is getting a little better. She has had several dermatologist appointments and both the doctors reassured us that her hemagioma will most likely go away on it’s own and even if it does leave a little scaring, it won’t be anything that can’t be fixed.

Brandon is very healthy and he is also doing well. His main challenge is eating. He had nursed a little before his operation, but after a month of not nursing it was like starting over again and he didn’t take off as quickly as we had hoped. A full feeding for Brandon would be somewhere between 60 and 70. Both nursing and with the bottle he has been doing as poorly as 4-15. He just gets tired and quits or seems to have no interest. After trying to give him a bottle or nurse for more than a half hour we just have to quit and let him be fed through a tube.

The good news is that in the last couple of days he seems to be improving. In fact, tonight he took a record 47! This isn’t even close to a full feeding but at least he is going the right direction. Amy talked with the doctors and nurses about how soon we can get him home. Because of the fear of withdrawal, they need to wean his morphine very slowly. The current weaning schedule will be complete in 10-15 days depending on how he reacts. He may not be eating well enough at that point but we are going to start learning how to insert the tube and remove the tube so that we can take him home even if he isn’t completely ready to eat on his own. With this in mind, we have a good chance of having him home for Christmas. Katelyn came home on Amy’s birthday and Brandon may come home on my birthday.

We feel like Brandon just needs to be home. His head is getting flat and he really needs a chance to roll around and lift his head more often. While the nurses are great, there is only so much they can do to help with his normal development. There is also the fear of him getting sick while in the hospital. We have learned that hospitals are rather dangerous places and getting sick could be very dangerous for both Brandon and Katleyn.

We now have a plan for getting Brandon home!