ROP Stage 3

Grandpa Kenski had his morning visit with Henry. Joyce was on-call this morning, so she worked the first part of the day. She called in the morning to let Jeff and me know that the Ph probe was scheduled for 11AM. The Ph probe is a 24 hour monitoring system to test the extent to which Henry's stomach is producing acid that is going up his esophagus. She said that he looked great. His color is pink (amazing what red blood cells can do).

I arrived around 10:30AM. He was waking up but couldn't be fed because of the Ph probe. The nurse for the GI doctor came to insert the probe and hooked it to a monitor. The probe is in a tube that goes through the nose (just like an NG tube), but it doesn't reach the stomach. It lies right above the sphincter. Basically, it records the Ph levels throughout the 24 hour cycle. In addition, we have to track when he has notable episodes, so that they can match it against the recording. So far, looks to me like the boy has major reflux. The Ph levels in his esophagus have been really, really low several times already during the day.

After the GI nurse left, I nursed Henry for a little while. And, he does look good. His color is nice. Joyce said that he has more patience during diaper changes, which is good.

Joyce was supposed to leave around noon, but she decided to wait for the eye exam. That happened around 12:30PM. Dr. Miller was the doctor. And, the bad news is that Henry has progressed to Stage 3 ROP. That means laser surgery before the retinas detach. Dr. Miller is going to have the retina specialist come and give a second opinion. That will happen sometime in the next two days.

Dr. Erenberg had scheduled Henry's hernia repair surgery for Friday. However, given the new finding about Henry's eyes, the eye surgery will take priority. Dr. Erenberg corrected me when I called it "eye surgery." He said it was really an "eye treatment." I guess the difference is that they won't be cutting him. But considering that they will be zapping his eyes with lasers and he will have to be sedated, I think that "surgery" isn't far off the mark (one of the nurses today agreed with me; she said it was surgery).

Melita took over for Joyce until shift change. My mom came in the afternoon and held Henry after I nursed him. He nursed for 21 minutes.

Melita fed him a bottle of apple juice in late afternoon. Henry has to take two bottles of apple juice during the Ph probe study. This is because apple juice has more acidity than does breast milk (and they wanted the variation for the study).

Joyce is back on duty on Saturday. She called to check up on Henry yesterday (on her day off). And, she plans to come by before he checks out some time next week.