Day 17: Frankie Fuss claims the day

Frankie has had a long day. He was fussy for the surgeons this morning. They said the redness on the omphalocele was completely normal but held off on the silvadene today. I did speak to Jose the surgeon this evening and he told me they were going to restart the silvadene tomorrow. Around noon, the speech therapist came by to play with Frankie and try giving him tastings of breast milk by dipping his binkie in it. But he was inconsolable. Instead of breast milk, he got Tylenol. We try not to give that to him, we do not want him to became an addict. I can see it now, dealing baby aspirin under the slide. He never really had a fully awake and fully asleep pattern today like normal. He was in and out of sleep, waking to be patted on the butt back to sleep. We did buy a NOS (New Old Stock) bed thumper for him. Instead of having to pat his butt, this little shaker will sit in or under the mattress and console him. It has a separate motion sensor, so if he does wake up, it will turn back on. It was called the First Years Gentle Vibrations 3 in 1 Crib Soother. By the time I am writing this, his feeds are up to 11cc's an hour. I believe his goal number is 18cc and hour based on his current weight, which is a little over 7 pounds 3 ounces. Besides that, Frankie Fuss was cranky all night until now, when he just had a bowel movement or two or three. When I told the surgeon earlier that Famous Frankie gets fussy, passes gas, has a bowel movement and feels better, Jose's response was just like every man. Alex's mom came up this evening and hung out for a little bit. Jaclyn took a minute off from having people run into her car to come visit. Even Tino came up for a little bit. My father is battling a cold, so he took the night off. Probably got it from making out with my mom again. Alex went to the OB today for a check up and they verified that she did indeed have a baby. That everything looks good, but to continue to take it easy. Since she went to the doc, we drove separately. I finally got to dig the bike out for a ride up here. Now let me tell you, I have had some odd things on the back of my bike like beer and fat women (Notice the Cause and Effect there), but never breast milk. I felt like the Jesse James of Prairie Farms. Coming up here has become routine. We have become tougher skinned about the boy as we know it's for his own good. I almost forgot, they did a heart echo today and everything looked the same. Not better, not worse. They have no other plan of treatment as of right now except for oxygen flow. Day by day, this will be a thing of the past before we know it.