Hooray!

Yay! After nearly a month of static weight and weight loss, Wrigglesworth has stacked on 270 grams in four days, weighing in now at 4.58 kilos or just over 10 pounds. That is a HUGE weight gain for him so we are very stoked indeed. The nurse said he is likely to stack on some pounds really quickly over the next few weeks as he has been starved of calories without the NG tube and his body is keen to grow. My initial misgivings about having a tube taped back on his face are now replaced with lashings of love for that pipe of plastic. So uncross fingers people, and pop your thumbs up – its the stuff of dreams.

Sweet cheeks

So wee Albie gets his nasal gastric tube put back down today. While he has been feeding really well on his own, he is just burning through too many calories supporting his shonky circulation system to have any calories left over to grow bigger. And at four months yesterday, and just 4.31 kgs its becoming quite the issue.  The nurse explained it to me by saying that his blood is currently travelling on the windy, long road instead of the highway. The blood does get to the destination and get oxygenated, but it takes heaps more petrol, or calories, than it should do. And then Wrigglesworth runs on empty and so he isnt getting fatter. How I love a good analogy to make sense of things.

So he is going to get two calorie supplements after each feed down his tube to help him put on the beef. And the tube will probably stay down now till his open heart surgery.   We are gutted because with the NG tube comes a whole suite of medical paraphenalia – syringes, litmus paper, sterile water that remind us constantly that our wee boy is far from okay. But at the same time, we are sooooooo gunning for him to put on weight and whatever it takes is actually fine with us. It will be marvellous to see him start stacking on the pounds again.

So its a surrender to what needs to be and a temporary farewell to his sweet, bare cheeks:

The next big fat Albie challenge

I have been a bit schtum on the blog because Wrigglesworth isn’t gaining any weight without his NG tube. In fact, he has lost some.  Its a bit depressing, but after lots of internet searching it seems its the bain of the cardiac parent here, there and everywhere. I was speaking with Carla Ward, who is the support leader for Heart Children here and she said she found weight gain more stressful than intensive care. And it is in a way. Endless, endless, endless worry. So we might just have to see a re-arrival of the NG tube. Find out on Tuesday. Fingers again crossed. 

Notice anything?!

Chubby Checker

Its with such delight that I post nuddy photos of Wrigglesworth that Anthea took. He finally doesn’t look malnutritioned and we are beyond proud of the one fat fold he has on his legs! Lets get more of those! Poor guy will be getting a swathe of nuddy photos taken now as he is simply too cute in his emperors clothes not to get the camera out…

Homeward bound

So we fired off home to Taranaki for the long weekend. I say fired, but really mean to say, painfully made our way. The car was complete with one grumpy wee guy who was mystified as to why he needed to be strapped into his carseat and why he needed to sleep. The 4 1/2 hour car journey took a ridiculous 7 hours to get through. Ouch. We are soooooo flying next time.

But we got there in the end. It was lovely to be at my sisters and for Wriggleworth to hang with his cousins… with Master J….

Magical Inglewood

So there we were – firstly in Inglewood, and secondly waiting in the car for Papa Bear to return from the supermarket. It was deathly boring and Wrigglesworth was getting bored.  I started bopping a rattly bumblebee that hangs off his sunshade.

Oh the hilarity! Mumma – do it again! Do it again! And of course I acquiesed.  I caught the tail end of the hilarity with the camera. Haha! A bumblebee being hit. Haha! Wrigglesworth is so easily, easily pleased in Inglewood.