For those who have been helping me pray for my smallest grandson...Gibson...here is the latest update...please continue your prayers because they are working! Its 10/28/14 and It marked four months as of 10/25 that he has been in the NICU. Its hard to believe we have a 4 month old baby that is a gestational age of 41 weeks. He now weighs 6lbs 1oz and he is gaining weight daily! He was taken off oxygen and is still doing well with his breathing. He is getting my milk through a feeding tube that goes into his belly. They have fortified my milk with a product called Ellecare that makes it have more calories so that he can get the nutrition that he needs. He is now taking Imodium to slow things down so he can absorb his food. He is on Iron to help build his red blood cells, he is taking vitamins, and most recently they added Prilosec to help reduce his stomach acids and reflux. He was screaming every time he had to poop cuz it hurt his belly. In addition, they just added a therapeutic dose of an antibiotic to help reduce the over production of flora in his gut. Hopefully, this will help him digest his food better. He has what you call short gut syndrome because of all the bowel that they had to remove to save his life. Basically, it just makes it a bit more challenging for him to digest and absorb nutrients. As he grows, the prayer is that his bowels will grow too and eventually he will start to absorb food better. Prayers for poop have been answered because he is a pooping machine!! Food tends to go right through him but hopefully that will improve over time...to some degree. He has a raw bottom from all his loose stool but we have discontinued baby wipes and are using cloth, water, and a special ointment that acts as a barrier to his skin which also includes an anti fungal. He started learning how to eat from a bottle last week I just completed two weeks of exclusive breastfeeding. He is doing really well in that regard. His suck swallow, breathe reflexes are working well despite all the tubes he has had down his throat since birth. No oral aversions at this point which is miraculous! He still has a central IV line in his leg that is not being used and they are talking about removing it maybe this week, as soon as he is steadily gaining weight for an appropriate period of time. They just want to make sure that he will be able to absorb nutrition by mouth. They would like him to be able to take his full volume of food through a bottle prior to releasing him. If he is not able to do that, then they will have to surgically put a G-tube in his belly. This is where we would feed him through a tube at night and then continue to practice eating by mouth during the day. Gibson continues to surprise us on a daily basis with his resiliency, progress, and strength. Our prayer is that he will be able to take all his food by mouth and come home without having another surgery. Thank you to everyone for the continued prayers, thoughts, good vibes and love. We absolutely could not make it through this without the support we have received from all of you! Hoping he comes home by turkey day! Much love!
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 22:59:20 +0000
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