Update from the Morning

I stopped by the hospital this morning and held Madeleine for about an hour. Last night was a good night for her-- Sunday night is bath night, so they bathed Madeleine and weighed her-- she gained weight again and now weighs 1410 grams (3.12 lbs). She continues to put on weight slowly and gradually and this is a very good sign as it indicates that, at least right now, the heart isn't causing any problems that would require early surgery. Its too early to state this definitively but, as I've written a number of times, the doctors would prefer to delay the heart surgery until she is larger and instead reattach her intestines before worrying about heart surgery.

In terms of feeding, Madeleine is continueing to get 1 cc of milk every 6 hours and they don't envision changing this for at least a few more days. This small amount isn't really providing much nutrition, instead, they consider this "entrophic" and the goal with such a small amount is to "prime the pump" and ensure that everything is working right before sending more food down. In terms of the ileus, they took another X-Ray this morning and it shows some signs of improvement but they still see some of the contrast fluid from last week as well as signs that the intestines aren't working that hard. In short, the intestines appear to be improving slowly and they're calling it an evolving ileus. They will probably wait until Wednesday for another X-Ray-- at this point, their focus is on observing Madeleine's behavior. If there are any signs of discomfort (hard or distended belly or residuals in her stomach), they'll shut down feeding immediately. However, at this point, she doesn't show any signs of discomfort and the hope is that she'll continue to trend in this direction.

That's all for now. I intended to post another video today but our camera battery wasn't charged-- I'll try to post one tomorrow. Have a good day.

Brent