We've Got a 22 Pounder!!

Yippee!! We took Jake in for his routine check-up with his GI doc last week and were pleasantly surprised to hear that he weighed in at a whopping 22 pounds! It may be towards the bottom percentile of the growth chart, but he's still on the chart and he's gaining weight! This is a huge feat and something we have been working so diligently to achieve. After Jake's bout with RSV he lost a significant amount of weight and has been lingering between 20-21 pounds for months! With the G-tube he has finally gained weight!! Better yet, his vomiting has been virtually non-existent for weeks and once we switched to Pediasure with fiber his GI system seems to be working just fine...if you know what I mean.

Right now, Jake's on a 40 ml/hour overnight feed rate for 10 hours. He basically gets close to 2 full Pediasure bottles at night. Jake also still gets his two sit down meals a day that consist of all pureed food. He drinks much less from the bottle during the day, but that has helped his vomiting issues so he's getting more of the nutrition and we get less clean up. We are starting to do small bolus feedings during the day to help add a few extra calories and increase his water intake. Aside from that, his doctor was impressed with how well Jake is doing. It feels so good to know he's getting the proper nutrition.

Aside from gaining weight, Jake's actually growing all-around. In fact, he outgrew his G-tube so we had to order him a larger size to go deeper into his tummy. We were having issues the past few weeks with his G-tube leaking at night and it was not a fun mess to clean up in the morning -- gunky shirts and wet sheets from the fluid leaking. I think I went through an entire bottle of stain remover! Needless to say, his GI doc took some measurements and sure enough...he needed the next size up on the G-tube. Josh took Jake in today to have his new G-tube placed (simple office procedure - pull one out and plop the other in), but to err on the side of caution, we let the expert do it.



Post bath photo shoot - love that little tummy



The only bummer is that Jake's GI doctor is closing his practice and moving to Dubai to start up a new GI clinic. We are super sad to see him go because he has taken such good care of Jake over the past year. Dr. Haddad helped us to get Jake's disease diagnosis and spent countless hours researching/contacting specialists across the country to ensure he was providing Jake with the best care he could. We have greatly appreciated his support and will miss him. In the meantime, we've already connected Jake with another GI doc at Children's Hospital and are hopeful that she'll take good care of our little man too.



New G-tube - it's a little red because the stoma site has been leaking at night