Here's a recap of the past few weeks:
November 17 (regular Wednesday weigh-in): 8.95 kg (19 pounds, 12 ounces), 31 inches
November 24 (regular Wednesday weigh-in): 9.05 kg (20 POUNDS! Wohoo!), 31 inches
By the time we arrived at Grandma and Granddaddy's house for Thanksgiving that Wednesday night, Becca was running a little fever. It got worse over the next few days, peaking at 103.8 that weekend. By Saturday, I was on the phone with the pediatrician. From Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening, she was fever-free. Sunday night, the fever came back, and on Monday we went to see good ole Dr. Rawls. As always, they weighed her when checking her in:
November 29 (sick visit): 8.90 kg (19 pounds, 10 ounces) (We didn't do height.)
That meant that she was down 6 ounces in 5 days. Yuck. (Perhaps I should note here that when Becca gets any kind of illness, even if it's not stomach-related, she stops "tolerating her feeds," meaning that she throws up every night or morning...hence the loss of weight.)
The good doc determined that Becca had a "non-specific viral illness" that we just had to wait out. She wasn't feeling horrible, just tired, extra whiney and a little pitiful. I decided that when 2-year-olds get sick, their threshold for 2-year-old behaviors gets lowered. Anything could set off a tantrum, and heaven forbid if I didn't "Hold you!" all day long. I can't blame her, though. When I'm sick my threshold for 2-year-old behaviors drops, too. We watched a lot of t.v. but muddled through mostly in one piece.
On Wednesday, she was still running the fever (on day 8!), so we couldn't go to therapy, so we skipped the weigh-in as well. (It's usually done all in one trip.) Her fever finally broke for good on Thursday, and now she's still tiring quickly but doing fine. We never saw any respiratory symptoms, and the only GI symptom was directly related to the tube feeds (which we ended up slowing waaaaaaay down and mixing with Pedialyte to help with her toleration). She's back up to full feeds now, and we're back to our regular routine, which brings us to today's measurements:
December 8 (regular Wednesday weigh-in): 8.85 kg (19 pounds, 9 ounces), 32.5 inches;*
Which leaves us with a grand total of 100 grams (3 ounces) lost since November 17.
And that puts our net change, exactly 5 months from the day her g-tube was placed and about 4 months from the time we started growth hormone injections, at a weight gain of 1150 grams/35 ounces and a height gain of 3.5 inches.*
Even with the up and down months like this one, I feel like putting the tube in was a good decision. And the growth hormones are DEFINITELY a good decision (especially since she seems to be experiencing very few side effects from them and usually doesn't even mind the shot.) She's moving through clothing sizes now (currently in 12 months, but bumping up to some 18 months for the length), whereas she spent an entire year in 3-6 month clothes. That may not be the most scientific measurement, but from a mommy's point of view, that's a very good sign! Developmentally, she's picked up a lot of steam, too, and while it's impossible to pinpoint the tube feeds as the cause, having more consistent nutrition has definitely helped. If I had it to do all over again, I would probably push to have the g-tube placed when we were considering it in the NICU, but we had no way of knowing what the next 2 years would look like. Still, I'm glad we got it when we did - almost in the nick of time from some serious nutritional deficients. All's well that ends well, I guess.
*I highly doubt this height measurement is accurate.
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