Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A brief appearance.....

The NG tube made a brief appearance over the weekend after 3 days of bad eating and throwing up. Teag just wasn't acting like herself and didn't want to eat very much at all. When I would try and get her to eat more, she would gag and throw up- sometimes just from looking at the bottle! I hadn't been feeling the greatest myself, so I assumed she was feeling like me and just didn't have much of an appetite. She just doesn't have the reserves to go for more than a day or two without eating alot so on Sunday night we put the tube back in. Thankfully, by Tues. evening she was able to eat enough on her own that we were able to take it out and get back to normal. I did enjoy the tube for giving meds though, thats the only part about the whole ng that is nice!
I took her in to the pediatrician on Monday just to rule out anything else that could be bothering her. Its always hard to know if its just a 'normal baby' thing or a heart issue when she seems a little off, and of course I always assume that its a heart issue.... Everything checked out ok though and the Dr. seemed to think that part of her not wanting to eat and crying at night is due to teething. Teething?! How nice if it really is something that simple!
Today we had our scheduled cardiology appointment which I was anxious about after everything thats been happening the last few days. Teag finally weighs 14lbs!!! Well, 14 lbs 1 oz to be exact! This was reassuring after our bad eating all weekend. Her sats were great also at 87 and her heart rate/bp were good too. After seeing all of her numbers looking so good, Dr. Toews decided not to do the echo which bummed me out a little. Its always nice to see whats happening on the inside, and know for sure how's she's doing. He didn't want to change any of her meds and we're not scheduled to go in again until January!
Teag's biggest issue of all lately is still her chest wound from her Sept. 9th surgery. It's still an open wound and not healed over yet. It has started to close some and scar but we still have a long way to go. I change her dressing and clean it daily which isn't fun for her, and lately has been causing her alot of pain. Its so frustrating to still be dealing with this almost 2 1/2 months after surgery. The pediatrician looked at it on Monday and said he wouldn't be surprised if it takes another 6-8 weeks to heal up. Everyone is in agreement that there will be a pretty significant scar left, but until its completely healed nothing can really be done to address that. The plastic surgery department at Children's told us to come back in a year and have her evaluated to see what needs to be done.
Here's miss 'itty bitty' sitting up like a big girl! Physical therapy is definitely making a difference and she can sit up for long periods of time by herself now!

Here's a picture of her chest wound today. Its still pretty bad, but actually much better than it was. The dr. said she was close to needing a skin graft in the beginning, so he's impressed with how its healing..... You can see where her skin has grown in filling the hole that used to be there. Now she just has those two open spots to work on before its healed over.

5 comments:

Katie said...

Poor Teagie! I can't believe it's still open like that! I'm sure you're so tired of dressing it and so is she! Just one more thing...

Glad her appointment went well. She is sure a tough little cookie and so cute, love that big smile of hers (just like big brothers!) Talk to you soon-
Love,
Katie

Mimi said...

Oh my goodness!!! I can't believe it is still healing! You guys were hear forever ago. Poor kiddo- she did not deserve an extra injury!

I just got a super super cute package in the mail... from YOU! Thank you so much- you are so sweet for thinking of us. Mia is seriously sooo spoiled. You are so great!

Love Teagie's huge grin- love it! It's funny how I don't even see the NG tube now. When we first got here I noticed every child with one in- now it seems strange if a child is without one ;-)

Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Hang in there....the wound looks to be healing well! Sure it feels like forever. Love the happy sounds she is sharing with us...thanks for posting. Dylan loves his piano and alyssa loves her stuff too. thanks again. sorry we couldn't talk longer.

The Simmons Family said...

Teags looks SO great!!! Even with the NG tube! It's great that it's there and you know how to use it for times it's necessary.

It breaks my heart to see her wound... poor baby. I hope it heals SOON!!!!

Andrea

The Hands said...

What a big girl Teagan is sitting up like that! She looks so good! and 87%!!! Wow, 90's here we come!

We've had a "gut-wrenching" week too with Natalie throwing up and having diarrhea. I've done loads of laundry and been pushing the fluids. I tried the "tube" again last night to get some fluids in her slowly. I can really empathize with the anxiety of if you should take your kid to the doctor or not.

Really, Suzie, she looks good, even the wound. Sorry to differ with what others are saying, but it does take a long time for those kinds of wounds to heal (from the outside, in). I'll try and call you about this sometime.
So glad that you can skip a month on the appointments.