Two Marathon Days at Duke

Snuggling with daddy during the test.

Katie all "wired" up again!

As with all CDH babies, our calendar is speckled with trips to Duke for some Katie's 2oish doctors to see her one at a time. On Tuesday we trekked to Durham for the Audiologists and Speech language pathologists to check her out. As is the norm, most CDH children are at risk for hearing loss due to a combination of some of the medications that are routinely administered and the noise of some of the machinery that is required to both sustain and stabilize them.

While Katie was still a patient at Duke she had her first newborn hearing screening, which she passed provisionally. Tuesdays trip was all about her ears. It took three attempts at the test to secure a passing score for her right ear, but her left passed on the first attempt. We are exceptionally thankful for God's continued blessings. We will have to have them checked again at 8 months.

Katie on the examination table

Day two at Duke was spent with the surgeons who actually performed the life saving procedure to correct the hernia by removing her liver, stomach, and intestines from her chest cavity and suturing the diaphragm. The same super steady hands that so meticulously made our little girl whole, again gently inspected the fruits of his labors, and smiled as he confirmed the complete success of her healing. Her scar is slowly fading, and is becoming less and less noticeable. One cardiology intern has even asked at one point if a plastic surgeon made the closure of the incision. Beth and I can only remark that the Greatest Physician had a hand in this surgery and recovery.

I was given the green light by Dr. Hoehner to rough house with her, bounce her on the bed, roll her around, and wrestle with her just like I did, and still do, with Michael. He reinforced the fact that Katie is not a Porcelain doll, and not fragile. He thought that it would be a while before she would be able to take me, but to let her try!

As tough as she is, I may be in for a fight when she gets older! Michael better look out! We will probably both get some lumps at her hand. I will really be worried when they figure out that they can gang up on me!

Katie is doing exceptionally well all things considered. She weighs a few ounces less than 12 pounds, and has grown to 23 and 3/4 inches. Her reflux seems to be progressively getting worse, and we have found that is easier to change bibs than suits of clothes. Therefore Beth keeps a stack of bibs handy in order to perform NASCAR pit stop fast changes of bibs.

To her credit, Katie has also started sleeping 12 hour stretches very consistently at night.

The Lord has blessed us with two great kids!