From May 7th...
After 14 days in the hospital, we finally can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I spoke to the Pediatric Gastroenterologist(there are only 2 in the Greater Richmond area) over the phone this morning. She said that it appears that Emily's reflux is triggering the apneic spells. What happens is that when Emily refluxes her body goes into a protective mode to prevent aspiration of food contents (milk) into her lungs. She does this by closing her epiglottis, which is a flap that covers the trachea to prevent food from going into the lungs while eating and swallowing. The problem is that because of her immaturity, her body does not take the next step in this process, which is then swallowing and the epiglottis reopening to allow air to flow into the lungs. So when she refluxes (not every time), she does this process and has a "dusky" or apenic episode.
She's been prescribed two medications, Reglan and Zantac. The Reglan promotes gastric emptying and of course Zantac is an antacid. They prescribed her the lowest possible effective dose and they don't anticipate that she will be on it very long. They are ordering us a Tucker Wedge and Sling today also.
We're supposed to "room-in" tomorrow night (Saturday) at the hospital with Emily. So she won't be discharged tomorrow. We're hoping for Sunday (Mother's Day), but that may also be unlikely. Hopefully Monday at the latest... but I'm not holding my breath. This has been a huge exercise in practicing patience. The hospital is still very reluctant to release her to our care at this time. No episodes in 3 days. I think they are still holding out hope for the "5-7 days without an episode" standard. Let's cross our fingers she makes it 2 more days. At this point, it doesn't feel like they will let her go until she does go 5-7 days without an episode.
We'll see what happens...
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