First Meal!

Well...more of a first snack! Yesterday, around 4:30, Dr. Rouse came by and commented on how well Gabriel was doing and how little the chest tubes have put out (they have essentially stopped). He said Gabriel could start the tube feeds, but asked if they could start with an intermediate step - he's asking me? They started Gabe on the low fat formula (can't remember the name) that would hopefully not cause a flare up of the chylothorax. The reason I said snack is they started him at 5 ml every three hours (one oz -ounce- is 30 ml and a lot of 5 week old babies are taking up to 4-6 oz), but it is a start. Here is what we are looking for these first 24 hours on feeds: little or no spitting up, pooping, and no increase or color change in the chest tube output. If that goes well, they'll try the breast milk. This morning when I got there, Dr. Rouse had already been there (the nurses explained that the surgeons frequently do rounds around 5:30 AM, and then circulate throughout the day, between surgeries) and was very pleased with how well Gabe had done over night. He upped the 8:00 feeding to 10 ml, and repeated that if all went well, then tomorrow they would start the breast milk.

Dr. Rouse also said if the feeds went well, they would start weaning Gabriel from his morphine drip. The reason they want to make sure the oral feeds go well is they would like to use an oral medicine to help Gabe through the weaning process. The vent settings continue to be "tweaked", as the Neos put it! His rate is down to 24 bpm, his PIP is down to 26 and his pressure support is down too, but now that I want to type it in, I can't remember the number - but it is down too ;)

It has been kind of an exciting 24 hours, and the next 24 may help determine how quickly things may go from here...