Braving the cold/Doc Talk

Rebecca broke through the polar ice cap this afternoon to visit Thomas and visited with Doctor Quan, who I believe is the lead doctor for Thomas, although he has a team of doctors and nurses that looks a lot like the Verizon team from the commercial, so its a little hard to follow. I guess this was the 3 week, 4 day update that is so common. Anyway, as seems to be typical with many doctors, he was full of mixed messages and contradictions.


First the good news. Thomas' blood tests have been consistently good. They gave him some blood this morning, because they do take so much blood with all these tests. Since they have been consistently good, they will scale back on the tests. He's holding steady on 4 ccs of milk every 3 hours. Once they've given some time to the latest blood transfusion, they may increase the dosage of milk.


Second, because his blood oxygen mix continues to be so good, they may take him off the current method of a tube straight into his lungs and switch to the tubes that sit in the nostrils, which would again be a very big step. This could happen in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

On the other side, Dr. Quan revisited the bowel that is still now protruding from Thomas' stomach. He wanted to let us know that it will take a long time for this to heal, there still may be complications related to it. Just to revisit, the original reason we began down this path back in November was "ecogenic bowel", which is a condition in the womb that shows up on the sonogram as a white spot. In a way, it was a good thing, because the investigation of that led to us finding out about the blood flow issue.

The way it was not so great was the perforations in the lower part of the bowel. In the past, the method for treating this was to remove the part of the bowel with the perforations. This leads to more complications and challenges. The bowel is used to break down and ingest food. The shorter the bowel, the less absorption. The doctors chose to perform a new procedure, which was to pull the bowel up through an incision in the abdomen, and then he goes #2 there (I'm very sorry to be gross here, but I just can't figure out any other way to describe this. Believe me, I've racked my brain). This allows the lower part of the bowel to heal and saves the entire bowel. Dr. Quan wanted to reiterate that this will be a very long healing process.


The other message was that Dr. Quan wants to test for Cystic Fibrosis. The combination of the bowel issues and the congestion in his lungs are both symptoms and so Dr. Quan feels there is a possibility there. This is something that they won't be able to test for until Thomas moves on to the next level of NICU. It involves a sweat test, which Thomas isn't capable of yet. My own educated diagnosis makes me doubtful of the possibility and hopeful. Rebecca had an early test that I believe lowered the possibility of her being a carrier to 2%. I believe I would also have to be a carrier for it to be possible. I may have those probabilities wrong, so Rebecca may have to correct me. But we won't know for a couple months, so let the waiting begin.


Sorry for the down swing, but you know, this is an all news blog, not just good news. So please keep the prayers and well wishes coming.


Also, we do read and enjoy the comments and I'm happy to make this blog interactive, so if anything doesn't make sense or you have additional questions, feel free to post them and I will answer them to the best of my ability.
Mike