Three For Thursday – Triplets Rollercoaster Edition

On thursdays, this summer, we check in each week to see how the Forness triplets are progressing during their stay at Children's Hospital.

When Dogs Attack!

First of all, many apologies about the pictures.  It seems that are camera has finally gone the way of the ghost after five years and I assure you we will pick a new one up this weekend.  So, my next Thursday's post we should be right as rain again.

It's been a week of tremendous ups and downs again for the Forness triplets.  If there was any doubt that I was beginning to lose my hair and going gray, this week pretty much confirms it. 

Noah Again

I've has some wonderful moments with Bella this week.  Since she is bottle feeding every other feed, I've had the pleasure of bottling her several times in the last seven days.  She's so expressive during the process.  First of all, she's a complete wiggle worm.  I can't believe some of the positions that she bends herself into.  It's like her spine is made of Jello.  Her facial expressions vary from focused concentration to joy, and then back to focused concentration.

When I sit her up to burp her, her eyes get so wide, as if she's seeing the world in a whole new way.  I think she actually enjoys the pounding on her back, she start to turn her head to look around and smile, always looking for Mommy or Daddy.  It's actually difficult to keep her focused on the fact that she needs to burp.

She still seems as tiny as a peanut, but is actually at 5lbs 1oz now and is filling out quite well. 

Noah has had the widest swings this week.  They stopped feeding him Sunday and Monday because he wasn't tolerating his feeds.  They tested his liver since he is alarmingly yellow, even the whites of his eyes.  I'm a little irritated in that it seems like no one will give me the results on the liver tests.  To me, when he's that yellow and you start talking about the liver, I get real nervous.  So we'll have to wait and see on that. 

All his other tests showed was that he has a Uterine Tract Infection for the third time.  So they are treating his with antibiotics for that and started his feeds up again.  With 24 hours, they had him bottling feeding every time now, so his food tube is gone, which means, other than the HEP trap in his head to give him his antibiotics, he has no more tubes hooked into his body anywhere. 

YEAH!

And the big, yellow man finally cracked the six pound mark yesterday!

I got a real good picture of his Wubbanub above.  That's the little beanie dog with the Nuk sticking out of it.  Occupational therapy gave it to him.  I've got to find more of these.  I think they said that you can't really find these in stores.  They are so cool.

Finally, Owen…he is progressing from recovery of his surgery.  It's slow.  He was expected to be off the ventilator after a couple days, but is still on it seven days later.  He's had both lungs collapse, in turn, and his surface wound got rather infected that they had to drain it.  Fortunately, the infections were caught before they could take hold internally. 

I haven't any pictures of him this week because they've been trying not to unnecessarily disturb him and he also looks alarmingly puffy.  His head is lopsided because they rest him on the one side due to his ventilation tube, and the other side has collected a tremendous amount of fluids.  The poor kid has had to do a tremendous amount of fighting in these first couple months.  I know that this will eventually make him stronger in heart and soul but I still ache everytime I see him like this.

That's all for this week.  The only other note I would have is that they've pretty much told us that no one is coming home by the original proposed release date of August 27th, so we'll be here for awhile.  Thanks for reading and have a great day!

-  Papa Charley