20 November 2010 (pm)

Jereth at St. Lukes PICU

After a night of tube feedings Jereth maintained his weight - no loss, no gain. The nutrition has been increased from 22 to 24 Calories per ounce either as formula or as fortified breast milk. We're bottle feeding during the day at least to start. After 15 minutes anything he hasn't taken by mouth is fed through the tube.

Because of his heart defect Jereth is using up the calories he is taking in and more just to suck and swallow and for his heart. He's lost all of the reserves he had when he was born.

By increasing the Calories he is taking in and decreasing the effort he has to expend to get those Calories he should be able to start gaining weight again.

We had a visit from the pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Eloise Walker, this evening. We are fortunate Jereth's doctor asked for an echocardiogram after receiving the Down Syndrome diagnosis. With a hole in the heart the size of Jereth's there is no heart murmur this early in life. Without the echocardiogram it may have been 12 weeks or later before symptoms of the VSD (ventricular septal defect - the big hole in his heart) showed up enough to warrant further investigation. Since we know about the defect we can intervene before it becomes life-threatening or inoperable.

The plan for now is to get Jereth growing enough that he is as strong and healthy as possible before he has open heart surgery to repair the holes in his heart. As long as there are no further complications, the surgery will be scheduled for soon after he is 3 months old.