Last Sunday, the doctor on staff suggested that Lucy be taken off of fortified Breast Milk and put on a special weight gain formula in preparation for her upcoming surgery. While that sounds good in theory, the transition did not go well. By Monday afternoon, Lucy was unable to keep any food in her - it was just going right through her to her diapers. She got extremely dehydrated, to the point that she had to have an IV put in (to her head - poor baby!). Her suction tube typically has between 20 and 33 ccs in it by the end of a 12-hour shift, but it was running between 1 and 5 ccs while she was dehydrated. We were initially concerned that she had caught something, but all of her blood work and labs came back fine and it seemed pretty obvious that it was the switch to new food.
So, she was on an IV for 2 days and now has gradually worked her way up to full feeds again - straight breast milk, no fortifiers! During that time, she also developed something called stridor, which is essentially noisy breathing. It sounds like she is wheezing all of the time. So far, her oxygen levels do not seem to be impacted, so doctors have recommended waiting to have it looked at until after her surgery. It is possible it will go away on its own and that it is not related to her recent setback, but the timing of it is curious.
It was extremely frustrating for Jason and I, as we trust the doctors to make the right decisions for Lucy, this was clearly not the right decision and we are still struggling to understand why they wanted to make such a drastic change in the first place, especially when it was ordered by a doctor that was not her regular doctor. We are praying that this bump in the road will not impact her surgery on Tuesday. Final blood work with be drawn and evaluated on Monday to ensure that she is OK for surgery.
As a side note, Jason's mom and his aunt came to visit this week. Although their NICU visits were limited because of her condition this week, they both loved meeting her and we loved having them visit - especially the home cooked meals to come home to at night, and fellowship we shared over a competitive game of Phase 10 (I won, by the way!) Thanks for coming, Grandma and Aunt Geneva!
Jason is on his way to Thailand - he left this morning, so it will be a long 10 days while he is so far away. Please pray for both of us as we deal with the emotions of Lucy's surgery so far apart from each other. Also, pray for baby Lucy, that she may be ready for surgery and that it is successful! We need to bring this baby home!
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