Could it be possible that Timmy is already 6 months old?!? The time goes by soooooooooooo fast! He is growing like crazy and his doctor most recently described him as "husky." The good news is that his cardiac condition is stable and looking good at the moment. His cardiologist predicted that he may not need a second open-heart surgery until he is a year old or more, when the prediction had previously been for some time between 6-9 months. This was great news! The bigger and stronger that he is, the bigger and stronger that his heart will be heading into surgery. It was also a tremendous relief to learn that we are not right on the threshold of another major operation with all of that stress and scariness upon us already. Timmy did just undergo a minor surgery a few weeks ago, however, because his feeding situation has not been progessing as we had hoped. He still will not take oral feeds, and the doctors have labelled his condition "extreme oral aversion." Although he was gaining weight and growing well with the Nasal Gastric tube, other complications arose, such as a severe struggle with reflux. We'd hoped that Timmy would be taking his food orally by now and speculated that the prolonged use of the NG tube may have been contributing to his oral aversion. So, we decided to replace his NG tube with a gastric tube called "a Mickey button." It is a semi-permanent device that is surgically placed directly in his stomach, and he receives his feeds using a feeding pump connected to this g-tube. He is willing to take small spoonfuls of milk orally, and his medications as well, so we are hopeful that he'll make progress towards oral feeding with continued patience and dedicated work. We have an Occupational Therapist who comes to the house once a week and works with me on how to procede with his feedings. Unfortunately, Timmy's struggle with reflux has not improved by the placement of the g-tube, but there remains the hope that he may simply outgrow the reflux shortly. If not, there is another surgical procedure that might become necessary. We'll do whatever it takes to keep him growing and grooving. Despite his struggles, he is a very smiley, happy little guy most of the time who is a joy to be around.
