3 Pounds

We went in for clinic this Thursday for a general check up and progress report. Guess what? Eating foods that are high in calories and fat make you gain weight. In one month Ellie gained 3 pounds and grew 1.75 inches. You should see her little legs, they have fat on them!

The result of this weight gain, is that she gets to continue eating like she is but she also gets another night of PN removed and replaced with D10. So, now she has 4 nights of PN and Omegaven (white gold) and 3 of D10. We tried this a month ago and she didn't gain any weight. But with her new weight gainer diet that is working on her and sadly me too, she should be okay.

The short bowel team was also very excited by her progress and how well she is handling it when we plug her ostomy. The results came back from the upper GI with large bowel follow through and everything still looks good. The report did mention that the bowel was very slightly more dilated than it was in March but much less than it was in October of 2006, before she had her ostomy. They also mentioned that there were no stagnant areas in the bowel. It was also noted that a transit time of 2 and half hours is good. It was very nice to read the report and to hear how excited the team was about the results.

We do like the Short Bowel team but we will wait a week and a half until we talk to Dr Jennings to see what the report really means and what our next step is from here. I do have to say that it was nice to go into clinic and have everyone be so excited by her progress.

All in all she is doing well with the ostomy. She is staying hydrated and continuing to grow, so if we have to keep the ostomy for a while, it would not a bad thing. Ellie handled the trip well and put on her magic show for the team. She takes a toy and hides it in her shirt or behind her and then says "where did it go?" (ok she doesn't say it with words but with hand gestures and shrugging of her shoulders and a "Hu") Then after a second or two she makes the toy reappear and says "TAH DAH." (this she actually does say)

She was very tired when we got home, but still put on a show for us as she settling in for sleep while Gib put together her PN, as you can see below.
Ellie with 3, yes 3 binkies in her mouth. Her eyes are closed because she is giggling too much to keep them open.