Such a big girl!

So much has happened since my last post 5 days ago hence not having time to type updates. After I left the hospital the other night after the snow storm the stars started to align with various things.  Zoey was taken off the antibiotics, which I felt was a little quick, but I don't have a medical license and things have been ok since.  Her incision site is looking better.  The incision itself is healed and the spot around the g tube is getting better.  It's still red but not oozing as much since using a zinc oxide cream which acts as a rain coat for the skin so the moisture doesn't stay there.  It seems to be helping overall.  Then, since the antibiotics were stopped, they figured the PICC line, which was that catheter inserted in her neck, was removed since nothing needed to go through that anymore and all other medicines were being administered via the g tube.  YAY so one less line now!  All she has is the leads measuring her respirations and heart rate and the line measuring her oxygen level.  So much more manageable and really makes her seem like a big girl.

We still haven't passed into the 6 pound range yet, and her weight either went down slightly or stayed the same over the past few days, until last night when it increased again finally.  They aren't too concerned with this since they changed her feeds to every three hours from continuous and every 2 hours.

Oral feeds haven't been going quite as well so we'll be working with the lactation consultant tomorrow to figure that out.  Time will tell if we'll end up switching to bottles for oral feeds but for now everything is going through the g tube.  A pharmacy brought supplies for that so we could start learning how the equipment works since we won't use the pumps from the hospital at home.  There was a lot to learn but very easy once you've done it a few times.  The gravity feed bag is a bit more complicated than it seemed it should be so they will be looking if there's something else otherwise we'll just use a pump so we know the rate and don't upset her little belly.  It's nice to be getting practice on the things we'll have to use whenever we make it home.  Considering her very complex journey, I'm so grateful this is the only equipment we'll need and probably not for very long.

Despite me working this past weekend, my Dad was generous to come and help finish so much around the house.  We got the wall boarder and decorations put up in Zoey's room, we did LOTS of cleaning (and this was mostly just Dad while I was at work), and he tied up some loose ends like cutting up wood from the storm last year, washing screens and windows, fixing the window cranks, and tearing apart the washing machine since Ray got black dye in it that wouldn't bleach out (long story but it's fixed now).  This was SOOOOO appreciated that he came and did this for/with us because it lowered my stress level significantly and I don't think I would have gotten all of that done without him!  Thanks Dad!!!  And thank you to everyone else who has helped along the way whether it was sending a card, sending a gift, writing well wishes on one of our sites, visiting at the hospital or anything else...it was all noticed and all VERY appreciated!

In addition, we were able to purchase the remaining items from our registry that we needed for Zoey.  This was fun but we racked up a big bill in a very short amount of time.  But now I feel like we have what we need and we won't feel like we should have gotten something when we had the chance.  Overall, it feels good getting so many things checked off the to-do list.  And Zoey is doing great and that's the biggest thing that matters.