Christopher’s Journey.

Chris’ last IV’s were taken out today. So now he only has the Gastrostomy and the bladder catheter left. Its the lest amount of tubes he has had since he was born!! The bladder (supra pubic) catheter, is being clamped off for 3 hours out of every 4, to allow Chris to start peeing normally. He is now back on full feeds which is 50mls of formula every 3 hours. So hopefully this will start fattening him up. He had a kidney Ultrasound today to see how his “good” kidney is going. His kidney function is a little less than it was before he went to Melbourne. The 6 minutes he was on heart by-pass caused slight kidney damage. We will have to wait to see if the function gets back to where he was. His kidney is considered on the “high-side of normal”. Which means he only has about 40% total kidney function of the average person.  So Christopher’s kidneys are a very precious organ. But his blood pressure is normal, so currently they are functioning well enough to keep Chris well. If the kidney doesn’t grow with him or fails at a later stage, it will mean dialysis and a possibly kidney transplant later on in life. He is still quite unsettled at times, so I started reading to him. The NICU has a whole pile of children’s books. Christopher seemed to like being read too. He seemed to drift off to sleep while I read (maybe he got sleepy listening to his Mummy - his Dad sure does!!) and then he would stir and grizzle when I stopped.