Well, Dylan may have done a lot of growing over the Summer but his veins are still rubbish. The trial for his blood pressure medicine (Captopril) was a success in that it didn't affect his blood pressure too traumatically. Not sure he'd agree that he had the best day there were screams and howls at every attempt to measure his blood pressure (every half-hour), he still hates heel pricks (which gave a poor reading) and he hates someone trying to find a vein into which a needle can be stuck (to take some blood). Poor munchkin. On the plus side Captopril is a nice easy medicine to give as it's liquid and doesn't need to be on an empty stomach which is even better. Let's hope it does what it's meant to do; bring his blood pressure down to normal levels!
Wednesday - 20Nov13
Well that was reasonably painfree and rubbish! Dylan came down with a cold last Sunday which wiped him out on Monday. By Wednesday he still hadn't really drunk or eaten anything and was still mainlining Calpol but not quite bad enough to take to hospital. He had his first real meal on Friday and was well enough to take away at the weekend. And this week he's back to normal. So the cold was rubbish because no one likes being ill and small ones can be quite hard work when they're feeling rubbish, but painfree because it only lasted a week. That's the first of the winter colds; let's hope they're all like that!
And finally, he's admitted that the word "please" does exist and that if he uses it then he's far more likely to get his way!
Oh! and he's in Daddy's good books as when he saw a still of Leigh Halfpenny (Welsh fullback) from the game at the weekend he said "rugby".
Monday - 11Nov13
Well, we're off the fortified milk and onto full-fat cows which makes life a little easier! All we need to do now is to encourage him to drink more of it and from a cup...
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| Dylan helping (eating) the Christmas pud |
Friday - 01Nov13
Well it's been a busy time for us and we're now mired in more chaos than usual having just moved house. Not in any rush to do that again. Dylan has mostly taken this in his stride thankfully. The Cat appears to be less impressed possibly because we're meant to keep him inside for a week (I think) and there's no sofa to occupy (yet). And we're worried we're going to lose him somewhere. Probably in a box which is where we thought we'd lost the only set of car keys...
Dylan is a parrot which is a problem when I have an attack of the gwynfor's. It's just not possible to get the right amount of invective behind "bother" or "fiddlesticks" no matter how forcefully expressed. He's mostly speaking single words although he does come out with comments like "more nana". "No" is used interchangeably for yes or no. Please and thankyou are non-existent and clearly are no where near as important as "more" or "up".
On the health side he had his four-monthly appointment with the paediatrician which went well. They are very impressed and pleased with his progress. Which is all good. On the downside he's going to need some more drugs. We've been monitoring his blood pressure for a bit and this at the top end of acceptable levels which given that he does have a coarctation is not ideal. So he's going to be put on something (Captopril) to reduce the pressure to more moderate levels. This is another drug that nominally requires an empty stomach and no food for at least an hour afterwards. Not ideal for a boy that needs feeding up! Although he's still on the charts and working his way up the centiles. He now weighs 9.4kg. Have I said that we really like summer?! The reflux test that we did has shown no evidence of excessive acid in the stomach which means he's just one of those that vomits more easily than others. Which we kind of knew, but it was worth checking.
In preparation for another winter of discontent (or time spent in hospital!), we've also been given high(er)-calorie options for his milk for when he stops eating. He is still on his fortified milk but we're going to try and wean him off this and onto full-fat real milk over the coming month or so as the fortified milk is more designed for babies aged up to 18months. It has clearly done it's work though. And yes, bronchiolitis season has started.
