+ 0 - 0 | § ¶What's strange about this picture?
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(more)+ 0 - 0 | § ¶He made it!
9 lbs, 0.5 oz!
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Failed leak test
I talked to Kari on the phone this morning, and apparently Alex has failed another leak test. It's a smaller leak this time, but this reminds me of the situation where you go half the distance between here and the door, now go half the distance to the door, repeat, etc. We have no firm word yet on how this affects the liberation date though. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Not yet!
Alex actually lost about an ounce in the last day, so he is now 8 lbs, 12 point-something oz. No 9-lbs yet. And yes, he is now only attached to the food pump for his gj tube and the monitor leads. No major equipment!
I did talk to his nurse this morning...Alex may not have a cold, but may have a narrowing at the surgical site. This is expected (and is called a stricture), and will eventually be treated by doing dilations (stretching) of that narrowing. What I don't know is how this affects any possible discharge plans...we'll see if I can get any information after the leak test tomorrow. They'll be able to see how much the site has narrowed, and should be able to give us an idea about when they'd want to do the first dilation. The problem comes when the site gets too narrow for his spit to pass through. Then, he can start choking on his secretions again. Unfortunately, they don't want to dilate too soon either, for fear of breaking the fairly new and somewhat weak attachment. Again, we'll wait and see as usual.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶One down...
The chest x-ray went well yesterday. It showed that Alex has no build-up of fluid from the leak and no fluid around his lungs, so the chest tube will remain out. Yeah!! They also scheduled his next leak study for Wednesday. Now I'm hoping that he can get rid of the cold that he has soon...he was very tired yesterday and was pretty congested at times. Here's hoping that tomorrow is a good day...
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Finals week...
This is a week of tests for Alex. Today, he is going to get a chest x-ray, to see if the fluid that is leaking from his esophagus is accumulating in his chest. We're fairly certain that it isn't...he isn't having any breathing problems...but if it is, they will have to put the chest tube back in. Obviously, we're hoping that it isn't. On Wednesday or Thursday, they will again repeat the leak test. If he leaks, grrrr. If he doesn't, yeah! How is that for summarizing?? Anyway, I'm also hoping that the doctors don't overreact to the apparent cold that Alex has a bit of. Dan and I have been sick lately, and as hard as we've tried, I think Alex has caught it. So far, it just means that his nose is stuffy, and because of that, he wheezes through his nose when he's upset. I'm just expecting that the docs will see this and start all of the antibiotics again...which probably wouldn't work anyway because the cold is most likely viral. Alex's temperature has been okay though, so maybe they'll let it go and just watch it for a while. As usual, we'll post results when we have them.
Oh, and Alex is up to 8 lbs, 14.4 oz.