Saturday 24th September 2011

Today we got to spend quite a lot of time with Freddie which was lovely. When Jon and I arrived at his ward Freddie was just being weighed:

What a big boy! Freddie has put weight on and now weighs 2.4kg which is roughly 5 lb 5!










We gave Freddie his 1ml feed of my milk via syringe into his mouth when we got there. He did really well licking and supping it down.
The nurses had a bit of trouble in the night with Freddie because he decided to have a good pull at all of his wires and ended up pulling out his long line (into his neck) which is where his TPN goes in and he also pulled out the tube in his nose, also one of the lines into his hand stopped working!
The doctor came round and said rather than putting another long line into Freddie which is an unpleasant procedure for him they decided to increase his feeds rapidly in order for him to to get all the nutrients he needs. So his feeds went up to 4ml every hour then tonight they will increase to 8ml every hour. We gave him a couple of feeds in his mouth but he was quite tired after that so he had one into his tube. However just before we left we got to give him his first little bottle feed as he had been rudely awoken by the nurse taking his blood!

The doctors carried out an Echo scan on Freddie's heart this morning. They are happy that his heart is coping well whilst he is on the medication which keeps his aorta open. The surgeon explained that they would like to carry out his surgery next week. It sounds like on Wednesday they will assess whether his stomach is coping with feeds OK and if it is then they have said the operation will probably be on Thursday.
It's a very strange feeling involving mixed emotions again because the thought of him having heart surgery is terrifying but on the other hand he needs this procedure and the quicker it is done the quicker he can start recovering.

Goodnight all!
xx

Samuel quote of the day: "Grandpops, you've got attitude."    They both have!