Pulmonology appt

Yesterday, Bree had her pulmonology appt at PCH. Our good friend, Aleasha, watched Riley for us so that we could concentrate solely on Bree (HUGE thanks girl!)! We met with Dr. O'Hagan, and briefly talked about her oxygen needs and how she has been handling it. Our next conversation was about everything else going on with her: how she cries (loud!), how she eats, how her weight gain has been, and how she has been with peeing and pooping (eh...).

Dr. O'Hagan left the room to go round up our needed consultants after hearing all of our information. So, in came a nurse that was skilled with the oxygen and all those needs. She brought with her an oximeter, and we hooked Bree up and turned off her oxygen. Funny enough, Bree HATED having the oximeter on her foot! (Maybe she figured the past three months was enough to last her a lifetime!) She screamed, kicked and fussed so much that it was hard to get a good reading. No amount of shooshing, jostling, swinging or consoling could calm her down. After the test period, the nurse went to consult with Dr. O'Hagan about what his reccomendations will be.

Next came the dietician. Due to Bree's problems with gaining weight, we discussed all that she was getting. What it was, the frequency she was eating and how she does with burping and "urping". Bree was on a 27 calorie per ounce diet. It is breastmilk fortified with Enfamil Enfacare. The dietician put Bree on an additional fortifier which now makes her 'meals' 30 calories per ounce. The new 'adder inner' is called Duocal, and can only be purchased online. For right now, we have about a twenty day supply given to us. So Bree's cocktail is now 180 cc's (6 ounces) of breastmilk, four teaspoons of Enfacare, and a teaspoon and half of Duocal. We mix that all up and use it as needed for her feeds. We go through about two six ounce bottles every 24 hours. We now have to call and give the dietician Bree's weights after our nurse comes to the house so that her weight gain can be tracked. We need to see if this increase is going to help her gain weight, or if something else needs to be tried.

The pulmonology nurse came back in after the dietician visit and since Bree did pretty good with her test. She was able to keep her oxygen saturations above 85 even with the screaming and fussing (which is what they want to see). However, since Bree is having issues with gaining weight, they do not want to stress her body anymore than they need to so we are going to wait on weaning her off the oxygen for a few weeks. We are doing an overnight study on January 23rd. This consists of us hooking her up to oximeter when she goes to bed for the night and taking her off of her oxygen. For a good 6-8 hours, we will monitor her saturations. In the morning, the machine will be sent to PCH and they will pull all the data and it will take about a week for them to consult with everyone to be able to make the best move for Bree.

Time will tell what will happen and all we can do is trust God and pray!

Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and in love with life!