Ruby Hope McKee Starling

The good news is that Ruby looks great from here pulmonologist's stand point, too!  She was sating at  99% percent when they hooked her up to the pulse ox.  In my mind that just confirms that last month she was fighting a cold.  Last time they checked she sating at 94%.  We are going to keep her on the diuril and KCl threw the winter and revisit taking her off in the spring.  Her RSV (synagis) shots start in November, this was decided by AETNA and the CDC.  He said that as soon as the H1N1 vaccine trails are over she could get that, too.  As long as the data says it's OK.  We need to get her electrolytes checked this week.  We will have a chest x-ray done in the next couple weeks.  Mostly to check for reherniation.  She's not showing any signs, but having a patch increases her risk for that.  She has a swallow study scheduled for September 29th.  I'm hoping they can do the chest x-ray at the same time.  She'll already be at the imaging center.  Her doctor said, "You guys are doing a great job with her!"  Chris and I are relieved that we are leaving her on the diuretic.  Diuril is a pretty mild one, it's not as tough on the body as lasix.  Either way she needs it.  So any side effects outweigh the benefit.

Due to so many other parents telling us that their kids hated rice cereal we decided to let Ruby try apple sauce.  She seemed to like it a tiny little bit better.  Again she swallowed less than a tablespoon.  She didn't scrunch up her face as much though.  We're only trying "solids" once a day at dinner time.  Our experiment of letting her  get really hungry and trying to bottle feed her backfired.  She took less yesterday than she has in weeks.  Today we're back to letting her go no more than 3-5 hours between feedings.  Maybe we'll play around with the schedule a bit next week.  The hard part is her KCl has to be given every 6 hours with her milk.  So we can't get off schedule too much.  KCl is the one med that we don't want to mess to much with the schedule of administering it.  Too much can cause heart problems and too little can cause her electrolytes to get out whack.

We've got a clean bill of health for the next couple days.  I'm sure some fears and worries will creep back in.  Especially as her chest x-ray gets closer.  Reherniating would be devastating.  It would require another hospital stay and major surgery including intubation.  It's not something we want her to have to endure.

Here's Ruby's opinion on apple sauce:

We'll give the apple sauce another try tonight.  Then maybe give sweet potatoes or oatmeal a try tomorrow.  Honestly the only reason i tried the rice cereal first is because a friend gave us an open can of it.  Once she gets to the point that she is eating things, I hope to make her baby food.  Right now though she is taking so little it's easier to just use the organic canned stuff.  I love to cook, so I am looking forward to making her food when the time comes.

We finally got some rain and cooler temperatures today.  I might be able to walk Ruby up to the lab to get her blood drawn.  During our years of fertility treatments I spent many morning at the lab near our house.  It's going to fun to go and show everyone our little girl.

Well... I knew she was being way to quiet.  She just yanked her tube out.  I guess that's my cue to stop typing and pay better attention to her.