Onward and Upward for Feedings

Well, the prayers for poop must have been plentiful - you can stop now. This morning's 5 AM blowout confirmed that everything is moving through as it should.

Last night, Mason had to go back on IV fluids to supplement his eating. The surgeons felt that he wasn't getting rid of enough fluids, so must have been getting dehydrated from the slow increases in milk. So, we had another night of restless sleep as the IV pump repeatedly would alarm saying that it couldn't pump the fluid. The IV site that Mason has is in his neck. Great for IV access and drawing blood (no needle sticks for his many blood tests), but very tempermental. If Mason moves his head in the wrong direction while he sleeps, the IV gets blocked a little. I will be so happy when that's gone!!

So far, Mason seems to be tolerating his food pretty well. They put the food into a syringe above his head (they call it a chimney), attach it to the feeding tube, and let gravity lower it into his stomach. They, then leave the syringe hanging above his head to let his stomach "vent" when it needs to. Since he's got air blowing into his body through the oxygen tube, the stomach fills with air in addition to food. Leaving the tube open to the syringe allows the air to escape instead of building up - we all do this by burping, but because of the reflux part of the surgery, Mason can't burp. So, we have to help him a little. So far, he is up to 24 mL of milk every hour (about 30 mL is an ounce) through the tube and our goal is 36 mL per hour before he can go home. They are increasing the feedings by 3 mL every 6 hours I think, so it will be tomorrow before we know whether or not he can tolerate the full feedings.

Overall, his lungs continue to do very well. He is down under 2 liters most of the time and even got down to 1 liter for a little while last night. Hopefully this pattern continues so that he can gradually decrease his oxygen need.