Updates and Milestones (just not the typical ones...)

Hi All,

I do promise to add in some pictures later---I realize that I am woefully remiss on uploading them to my computer and then downloading them to the blog. It's not like I haven't taken any lately; it's just that it's been a pretty exhausting few weeks.

Anyway, I wanted to update everyone on Hallie's tests results. When I spoke to the Pulmonologist on Tuesday, she said that, while they did culture a couple of different bacteria from her lung/bronch wash, a. both of the things that they cultured were resistant to Amoxycillin (the antibiotic Hallie was taking) and b. that it was awfully suspicious that these two (unspecified) bacteria were cultured from the same sample. Hence, she (the pulmo) felt that the sample itself was contaminated and didn't really tell us much of anything. If Hallie does get sick again (and we are crossing our fingers that she won't), the pulmonologist will prescribe a different antibiotic. I am sure that this will be fun to give to our little girl. Even the bubble-gum-flavored amoxycillin was sort of a nightmare; Hallie knows what a syringe looks like and her experience with syringes is not a terribly favorable one. I am sure that she still has the taste of the bicarbonate into which they suspend prilosec in her mouth. So we had to mix the amox. into vanilla pudding, yogurt, or at least give it to her by the spoonful to get it down. Fun, fun, fun.

Still, the pulmonologist was not so concerned as to order another bronchoscopy (thank goodness) and feels like Hallie's lungs sound clear; that most of the problems she is having are confined to the upper airway; and that Atrovent might be a nice substitute for Albuterol given that Hallie has laryngomalacia.

The GI samples were much more promising: Hallie shows no sign of damage to her esophagous from the refluxing acid nor any indication of having a milk intolerance or any other food-related allergic reaction. While she still might be aspirating a bit, no one is too concerned about this. Nor are they suggesting that Hallie have a G-tube placed. This is because she is growing so well.

Which brings me to her current stats: our very wiggly girl weighed in at 9,150 grams (give or take a few to account for the wiggling), which is equivalent to 19 pounds 9 ounces. This is phenomenal (and would still be were the scale a whole 100 grams off). Basically, Hallie is at the 50th percentile for her adjusted age in terms of both weight and length and at about the 10 per cent mark for her actual age. So her steep ascent continues.

This does not mean that the vomiting has stopped; indeed, we still have a hugely impressive record of one day of no vomiting in a row. But she is taking more in and keeping more down these days.

More important milestones, however, were attained by Hallie this week:

1. The putting-something-into-a-hole milestone. Hallie has long been resistant to the idea of putting things in things and instead has focused exclusively on taking things out of things. To help remedy her of this defect, Sharon and I bought her the Fisher Price gumball machine:



For the first few weeks that she owned this toy, Hallie could not be bothered to put the balls back into the machine. But yesterday (Thursday), she suddenly put it all together and now she is trying to put EVERYTHING into the gumball machine.

2. The pooping milestone. Hallie has now pooped on the floor to her bedroom (she was sans diaper at the time because Sharon was getting her bath together and had forgotten to fill up the tub so she placed Hallie on the floor in the nursery for a wee second. Which turned out to be just long enough to squeeze out a poop and begin to trail it all over the place. If that were not enough (and I assure you that it was), Hallie also decided to poop in her bathtub tonight. Clearly, she is living up to her nickname of Poopy Lou (which dates back to the NICU days when Hallie would poop 3-4 times a day; she still does!)

3. The first-word-that-suggests-that-the-kid-watches-too-much-Sesame-Street. The word? A highly predictable Elmo, used absolutely appropriately to signify red furry monsters with high pitched voices.

4. The first-attempt-to-let-go-and-walk-milestone. A big one, though still unsuccesful. And what, might you ask, motivated her? Paper, of course, which is the food of choice for Hallie since all that pooping requires a high fiber diet.

OK, that is all for now; I'll try for some real images in my next post.