Day 24: Frankie Too Tummy Starts Eating Again

Day 24 of straight kickin' it with my young homie Franken Ice. Boy wears his diaper like children's hospital was in north county. Word. He started eating again today. 1 cc an hour. It takes 30 cc's to make an ounce. So, for those mathematically challenged, that's less than an ounce a day. I see no hot dog eating contests in Frankie Flashes future. He slept, he got bathed, and he slept some more. No news is good news people. At one point, Frankie Fastball got a hold of his feeding tube and completely pulled it out, see below in the Don King photo.  Since Frankie Fountain did pee on his dressing today, I got to change it. The omphalocele gets silvadene creme, then xeroform (which for a lack of better description is a vasoline infused gauze) and then regular gauze. Since liquid (read urine) can't penetrate the xeroform, I only had to change the outer gauze. Eventually we will be doing this at home. When the surgeons dropped by today on rounds, they said everything looked good but they haven't started to apply pressure to the omphalocele yet because they wanted his breathing, eating, and comfort level to be good first. We asked about when he would be paroled, all they said was "it'll be a while". I want him to be healthy, but at the same time, it would be nice to take him home so we can have a normal life again. My Mother dropped by this evening for a while to say hi. Besides that, this morning Alex and I went to see my nephews as it had been a while. Little Tino lost his belly, he looks so skinny and tall. Sal looks huge compared to our Frankie. But most of all, I couldn't get over how much little Tino looks likes my brother Tino when he was a young boy. I felt like I was little again playing with my brother, other than this time around, this Tino doesn't constantly wanna dress up like a girl.