Day 34: Jekyll and Hyde

Vivienne was back to her normal pleasant self for the majority of the day, but as the title of this post suggests, it wasn't smooth sailing the entire time. No, baby Jekyll quickly turned into baby Hyde and threw a crying fit that lasted for about an hour. Nothing was terribly successful at calming her down. She would stop just long enough to catch her breath before launching into another fit. In her defense she did get her feeding tube replaced (from her mouth to her nose), her cannulas re-taped, and her diaper changed, so she was entitled to a few tears. Generally though she doesn't stay upset for very long, and so it was out of character. I'm sure the loss of some of her sedation had a lot to do with her emotional state. Somehow I doubt her NICU neighbors were very sympathetic as they listened to her test out those newly inflated lungs and healed vocal chords.

There weren't any real changes today other than another small reduction in her sedation. Speech therapy came by to do a quick evaluation and noted that she doesn't really have a strong "suck" (for feeding). She hasn't really made progress on bottle feeds and doesn't seem to be all that interested at this point. There was a short period today when she was feeding tube-free and did show some interest in a pacifier (and was even able to keep it in her mouth on her own). Normally she doesn't want anything to do with the pacifier, so that was good. I think having the feeding tube out of her mouth made her more comfortable. Hopefully we can make more progress now that the feeding tube is back in her nose.

Feeding tube free.

Trying out the pacifier.