Two Doctor's Appointments

Lordy, we've had a busy day. We had two doctor appointments today in the med center that were so spread out. Hanging out at the hospital is not my ideal of a fun day. We did see a few people who remembered us though, so that was fun. Oh and the gift shops. Those are always fun!

Walker has grown so much that I had to drop the foot rest so his feet can dangle.

We started our day at Dr. Naik's office for a social visit. She just thinks Walker is such a miracle and kept asking if I really knew that. Of course! Walker does this thing where he smiles and then the person will laugh and he'll get shy and stop laughing. Well, when Dr. Naik made him smiled and she started laughing, Walker kept smiling bigger and bigger! He definitely remembers who she is.

"I'm a big guy!"

We walked circles from TCH to Women's Pavilion like 800 hundred times and finally it was time for the GI appointment. Mrs. Laura, the dietitian was on her way to the hospital and stopped by to get a peek of Walker. She said she could tell he's gained weigh. Dr. Carter was very impressed with Walker's 21grams a day growth. We are now switching from 24 calorie formula to 20 calorie formula. All that means is we are switching the way we are using Elecare. We return back two days after Christmas to see the results. If Walker has maintained gaining weight, we'll switch to either a formula we can buy in the store or to whole milk. Whole milk is 20 calories so if he gains on 20 calories of Elecare, then we're good. He's still not allowed to have really sweet fruit because they love bacteria and we are still giving his tummy some time to recolonize bacteria.

"In this picture you can see my chunky legs and shoes"

Walker will be 11 months in two days and he is 18 pounds and 12.2 ounces, which puts him in the 7.34%. He is measuring 27.3 inches and that puts him in the 3%. Shorty but chubby! I'll take it!

He has his flu shot and we are getting ours soon. I have made it known that Walker won't be around people that have not have a flue shot this year. I've been advised by multiple doctors that since Walker is a gut baby and if he were to get the flu, it would hit him like a train and require hospital time with IV fluids. Now you don't want to be the cause of that, do you? Get your flu shot people!

The bad part of the appointment is that short gut babies have a higher risk of having a milk allergy. So we are supposed to start trying to give Walker food with dairy and test this theory out. I'm really hoping he doesn't have it but if he does, gulp, we'll be a dairy free family.
 :::Fingers crossed his tummy likes dairy:::


Edit: The best news was that Walker's liver and spleen are not enlarged! That's a common concern with being on TPN/Omegaven.