Hello 2 AM, my old friend

Ellie decided that things were a bit slow around here last night and wanted to make us think a bit in the middle of the night by mysteriously making her Omegaven disappear.

She is supposed to get 6 ml of Omegaven per hour from 6PM to 6AM for a total of 72 ml every day.

At midnight last night the pump alarm went off and told us that the bottle, which holds 100 ml, was empty.

Curiously, the pump told us that she had only gotten 36 ml.

Too much of the old lipid (the intralipid 'white poison' ) going in too fast can make kids very sick and has been known to go through baby livers like roto rooter causing serious damage. This was an eye opener.

The way we saw it, three things could have happened- 1) the pump gave her more Omegaven than it told us, 2) the 100 ml bottle only came with 6 hours worth of Omegaven, 3) there was a leak somewhere and the bottle had drained somewhere other than into the IV line.

Our guess was that the first option was the case since there wasn't a puddle and we would have noticed if a bottle had been half filled. We called the pump company and Children's and at 12:30 AM we got not only the nurse practitioner who handles TPN, but Dr. Puder, the Omegaven doctor on the phone. They both told us that it is something to watch but their experience with Omegaven is that even when a whoops happens, the consequences aren't bad. Some kids have gotten 12 hours worth in 12 minutes without a problem. The fish oils just doesn't tear up the liver like the soy.

So after that bit of fun and games, we finally got to bed around 2.

Ellie only woke up once to tell us to turn off the light.

We'll have a new pump this afternoon but we will be watching it very carefully.