Surgery Tomorrow

Owen will have surgery tomorrow afternoon around 12:30. He is having his last meal right now before he goes on IV fluids for a while. He already has the IV in his head. It's been a long time since he's had one of those, but he's handling it well. The surgery should take a couple of hours tomorrow and we will post something on the blog as soon as we get word about how everything went. We hope that the surgery will be smooth and that he can get off the ventilator soon after surgery and have a quick recovery. We're so nervous for our little man. He is 6 pounds and 12 ounces. He is growing so much. Can't wait until he's home!

We had our care meeting Friday and it went a little differently than we anticipated. The doctors feel like Owen's reflux issues are severe enough to where he would benefit from having a g tube inserted in his stomach for feeding. This would allow his throat to heal and allow him to come home a lot sooner. They stressed the importance of a baby his age being home to improve his development and that if we did the surgery, he could come home as soon as two weeks after the procedure. This is a big decision to put Owen through a surgery like this, but the alternative is an indefinite stay in the hospital.

We're supposed to think about the surgery option over this weekend and let them know tomorrow what we have decided. Owen is doing a little better the last couple of days. He has been a lot more comfortable since being off the Reglan and he has been taken off his last diuretic too. He isn't doing any bottle feeding over the weekend because the speech therapists want to be there to assess him while feeding. We'll try to update again soon and share what we decide about surgery and when that will be. Thanks for all your support!!

 He's come a long way!!

Owen is moving right along. He is 6lbs and 3 oz!! He has moved up again on his feeding amounts. He continues to make progress and then have setbacks with the bottle feeding and the spit ups. He had to have a gastric emptying scan to check out the reflux condition. They're trying some different things and working on getting him to advance with his feeding.

We have the meeting this friday at 2pm. We get to find out the specific criteria for going home! Please keep us in your prayers.

Owen Masters a Whole Bottle!!

This is Owen yesterday when we had a hard time getting him to calm down. He wouldn't take his pacifier, but eventually found his thumb. It was the first time we've seen him actually suck his thumb for a good amount of time. And then we put him in a little vibrating swing and he was really interested in the blinking lights and seemed to like the vibration.

In another first, today he took an entire feeding from a bottle. He is fed every three hours and gets 44ml. He had previously only managed to get 25ml from a bottle. So he made a big jump today. We're so proud of him.

He weighs 5lbs and 14oz. They increased his feedings to 44ml today from 40. They also decreased the time of his feedings down to an hour and a half from 2 hours. He's off the caffeine as of today, and still maintaining well without the breathing treatments... He keeps moving in the right direction.

 The other promising news is that they want to get a meeting scheduled to talk about the criteria for going home. Hopefully we'll be able to get that scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Thanks for all the prayers! We're so happy things are looking so well for our little guy :)

Our sweet little Owen had a swallow study and an upper GI today. The upper GI was normal, but the swallow study showed some aspiration. He will have to have a thicker feeding. They're going to add rice cereal and they're going to increase the bottle feeding to two times per day. We're going to work on building up his skills and his muscle development.
The nurse prac said this is what we're waiting on to send him home. Looks like as soon as he gets the feeding down, it'll be time for homecoming. Can't wait!!
He's still doing well without the breathing treatments. He only desats when he's upset; like when he's getting his diaper changed for example. Monday, the plan is to discontinue the caffeine or the diuretic.
He continues to grow....
We're getting closer and closer. Praying all goes well and its not too much longer.

Owen weighs 5 lbs and 11 oz. They're going to do a swallow study tomorrow to make sure he's not aspirating. He went up again today to 30ml while feeding with the speech therapist. He seems to be doing really well with his sucking and swallowing. No spit ups. But they still want to be sure.