Discharge Plans.

Rounds were kind of long today. It's been decided that Jaime probably had aspiration pneumonia, this being concluded after yesterday's swallow study. Jaime's discharge was discussed in rounds today, too. They are thinking that he can go home tomorrow. He has to show them that he can tolerate his feeds. He drank 460 of his required 760. Jaime will be getting the remaining 300 mls over continuous feeds through his NG starting at 10 P.M. (About 32mls an hr). Jaime had lots of diarrhea today...some of it may have been from yesterday's barium, the rest may be the thickening gel. Cheryl from OT said that can happen within the first 48 hrs. or so. She also said that it will take a good 30 days for Jaime to adjust to all of the feeding changes.
He had an "Eh" day. He was "smiley" this morning.

By this afternoon his "crabby" outfit sure was appropriate. This is Jaime watching Disney on my bed.

Even Jared came to cheer him up...it didn't work, but they sure look cute together! Jared misses his little brother being home.


After holding Jaime for a while, Jared decided that he would play school with us. He was the teacher writing on the dry erase board. Tom and I had to raise our hands to answer questions...it was pretty cute! We even had to "pull a card" when we talked out of turn...what a strict teacher he is! ;-)

Oh and in the picture, he is not hurt, that's just where I gave him his IV today after dinner.

Anyway, back to the discharge plans...like I said Jaime has to show them that he can indeed tolerate full feeds. Tonight will be the "true" test, as he will get 100% of his calories by morning. He did do better with his bottles when they were thickened. He's just not himself today and didn't finish all of them. He had a low grade fever again this evening. He got Tylenol, I washed him down, put his pjs on, he drank 1 oz of his bottle and went to sleep. I'm hoping he sleeps through the night. We want him well for tomorrow in case we can go home.
As for Cincy, well, as you may have guessed, we are not cleared to travel. I don't know when exactly we will be able to see Jaime's surgeon to plan his next surgery, but I do know that he has Dec. 29th available. We're hoping to get that day...I have a call in to his secretary to see if we can hold a spot for that day. In the meantime, it looks like we may have to go to Cincy 2 times in October, back to back weekends. We'll see, though.
I'm hoping Jaime has a good night and that he doesn't lose any weight...this morning he gained 5 grams...Ooooo, I know! It's something, though! :-) I know it's only been 10 days, but I'm sooooo ready to go home...and hope that will happen tomorrow. It's much different here than being in the NICU. We can't leave Jaime alone. I have been the one staring at 4 walls (with the exception of Friday night) since he was admitted. It's very strange. I have managed to do laundry twice and since we have a tv, bathroom and fridge in our room, I don't often have a "need" to leave it.
We do need to set up a few things with the discharge nurse first. We have to have Jaime's formula changed, and thicken stuff sent to our house (hopefully insurance will pay for it, I hear it's super expensive.) We also need to get Jaime hooked up with the Home Care therapists. He is to have OT, PT and SP once a week. So, that would be 3 different people coming into the home a week.
That's about all....keep your fingers crossed that Jaime tolerates his feeds and that his fever was just a fluke and won't keep us here another day!!!

Before I go, I'd like to wish my Aunt Karen a very happy birthday...it's 40 for the 20th time right? ;-) Hope you had a GREAT day!