Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Home from the Hospital

Good Evening Everyone,

We arrived home from the hospital yesterday around 5:00 p.m. and we are just now getting "settled in" and unpacked.  Emory is doing better and is not throwing up as often; however, it is due to the fact that the majority of his food goes through the feeding tube.

We left the hospital with an ng feeding tube which goes through Emory's nose and down into his stomach.  This is something that they showed us how to insert here at home because it has to be changed out every 7 days.  However, I will take him to the dr. office or hospital to have that done because I do not feel comfortable doing that.  He gets a continual feeding of 1 ounce every hour.  We stop it twice a day to bottle feed him so that he does not forget his suck/swallow skills.  He also receives his calcium and cardiac medicines through this tube which helps us to know that they are getting in his system and staying there.  When we didn't have the tube and he was throwing up so much, I was afraid he wasn't getting the full potential of his meds.  Now we have the confidence that he is getting his meds.  He has already gained weight and we follow up with the cardiologist on Thursday and the GI dr. on Monday.

On Monday, he did have the swallow test.  This showed that when he has straight formula (a thinner liquid), he aspirates and the fluid goes into his lungs, which over time can cause pneumonia.  When he has thicker fluids (with rice or oatmeal cereal), he does not do all of that and he takes it better.  So, when we give him the bottle feeds, he gets oatmeal cereal in his bottle.  We were doing this before with rice cereal in order to help with the reflux, but Emory didn't process it very well.  The times we have bottle fed him here at home, he has spit up after every time.  This tells us that more than likely the LES (Lower Esophagial Sphincter) is not working properly or is not fully developed.  Hopefully, this is something that Emory will grow out of or something that can be corrected after he has his heart surgery.  Righ now our goal is weight gain and we'll assess everything again at the cardiologist office on Thursday.

Our older boys, Emmitt and Eli, are on their way home with Gremmy and Papa.  They have had a great time in TN, but we are ready to see them.  I hope to be able to post some pics of all the boys soon, but also have to gain a little more computer knowledge.  We'll keep you posted on Emory's progress and visits as they happen.  Hope everyone is staying cool during these hot summer days!

Take Care,

Twila

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