November 4, 2008

Mondays are always a bad day, and it was a bad Monday for Amaree. I got a call very early yesterday morning from the hospital telling me that Amaree had blood in her stool. They stopped her feedings, put another IV in her head, and put a tube down her throat. The tube is sucking everything out of her stomach. It is called an Anderson tube and it decompresses her bowels.

There are several possibilities of the problem, and we still don't have results of any of the labs. The worst case scenario is that she has a disease called NEC (pronounced neck, it actually stands for something, but there is no way I can tell you what it is). This disease makes it so they can't digest food. It would mean 7 days of treatment, and then 7 days of getting back to feedings. Right now, it is looking like it isn't NEC, but it still could be. There are several other possibilities, but we don't know.

I tried to hold her yesterday, but it was so hard because the tube was making her gag. She would just gag and gag. Fortunately, once we get her to sleep, she is sleeping fairly well. She must be having such a hard time, having to go without food, having to get poked every few hours, not understanding what is happening.

Andrew and I are having a difficult time with it. We feel like we just got over the blood thing, and Sunday she was doing so great--she was even breastfeeding again. We gave her a bath, and she was so happy, and having a good time. Then for this to happen the very next day is really discouraging. Andrew describes it like we keep getting punched in the gut. I agree, but we are always blindfolded and don't know where or when the next hit is coming from.