November 29, 2023

Great day today with lots of progress made. First off, David gained some weight. The doctor is cautiously optimistic. We’re hoping for a second consecutive day of weight gain tomorrow since David’s usual pattern is up and then down the next day. If he’s up again tomorrow, then he’ll likely be discharged and allowed to come home! 

I’m not sure how David is going to like home life. He’ll have many less pokes and prods interrupting him; however, it’s certainly not very quiet here. Also, we were talking today about how it’s kind of funny what he gets away with at the hospital that we did not allow for Eli or Anna since it is not a best practice. For example, they say infants should sleep flat on their backs and have nothing in their bed with them. In the hospital David has always slept on an incline, with a pillow under his head and blankets and toys in his bed with him. It will be interesting to see how he handles life at home. We’ve been trying to get him used to wearing clothes other than a sleep sack lately, which he has started to tolerate more. However, is he going to need a shusher, or a pillow, or the incline? I guess we’ll find out soon. 

Otherwise, he had another echo today. I didn’t hear about the results, but I’m guessing they will bring it up tomorrow in his daily rounds. That’s also likely when we’ll find out if he’s been approved for discharge. Speech kept coming to try to observe a feeding today and was always interrupted by a different team taking presidence during David’s scheduled feeding times which kept pushing his feeds later and later. We instead talked briefly on what speech will look like as an outpatient. 

David finally got his hearing tested this afternoon as well. He passed! Now I know he’s just ignoring me when I’m talking to him. That was fun to witness since they took Eli and Anna out of the room when their hearing was tested. 

We also touched base with a member on the single ventricle team and she said we could use the infant scale we had at home rather than having to buy the one from the home service team. She will also come over sometime tomorrow to help us download the app and get that setup. We also discussed our primary care provider selection with her and she helped us to feel comfortable in that choice. 

I then spent the rest of my afternoon cuddling David. He finished all his bottles today. As for his multivitamin, we’ve given him a small dose after each feeding and then tried to get rid of the taste with some sweetums. So far it seems to have worked. David still doesn’t like it, but it’s not enough to disrupt his stomach. Hopefully we find a better option after we’re discharged. 

A service dog also briefly stopped by. David was not having it though since I think he wanted his diaper changed. The dog was a Great Pyrenees. His nose was larger than David’s hand, and his head was almost bigger than David’s body. It was a sight to see.