Hooray for the Fish!

We have some great news to share! Nora’s Bilirubin is down to 3.4! It hasn’t been that low since she was three weeks old.

Tomorrow will be seven weeks since Nora started Omegaven with a Bilirubin of 10.7. We are so happy to have found Dr. Puder and Omegaven. Hooray for the fish!

Nora is obviously feeling so much better now that her liver is clearing up. Her appetite has returned with a vengeance and she is as spunky as ever. She’s now waking up in the middle of the night to eat where she used to always sleep all night long. Now that her jaundice is clearing up she has much more energy and is ready to take on the world. 🙂
On Monday’s weekly visit from Nora’s fabulous nurse Virgina, Nora weighed in at an even 13 pounds. Virginia noticed a big difference in Nora’s color from last week and called it right that her blood work would come back great.

Nora tried some rice cereal mixed with her formula over the weekend and unfortunately it wasn’t very successful. We tried once on Friday and again on Sunday and both times Nora spit it up after just a very small bit. Hopefully it’s just a fluke and we’ll try again later. Rice cereal seems to work well for short gut babies and has been recomended as the best first solid food.

We’re headed up to Boston next month for Nora’s first meeting with Dr. Puder and his team of nutritionists. We are very much looking forward to meeting the doctor that has helped so many short bowel children including our wonderful Nora.

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions on getting more tummy time for Nora! We’ve been alternating between all of the positions and props and Nora is getting more comfortable on her tummy every day. In addition to tummy time, Nora’s favorite hobbies these days are grabbing her toes and trying her best to get them into her mouth, standing…she LOVES standing, taking practice steps while holding on to fingers and she especially loves to read.