And Now the Science Bit

A friend (hiya Dave) asked me about Henry and Charlie's feeding in an e-mail and, instead of answering, I thought it would make a good blog topic to describe some of the details of their care.

I am writing this on Sunday. Saturday was a good day and, although we had an unplanned extubation this morning, it was a very good, low drama version of what can be a scary event so Sunday is looking fine too.

Back to the feeding question, both boys are still getting their nutrition through a drip. The drip is called TPN (total parenteral nutrition) and is discussed and reviewed each day at rounds. They also get lipids, if you want to look that up too.


I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that, once upon a time, we were shown a care plan path "if things go well". On that path, the boys reduce the TPN and get fed breast milk. Well, unfortunately, they both perforated their bowels so we are still a long way off that happening. Instead, we are on the path where we can't rely on their digestive system to work. There are complications with being on TPN for a long time but, thankfully, the scientists have an answer to that too. If their liver starts to struggle, they will get moved to Omegaven (this post is sponsored by Google). We expect Charlie will be on Omegaven in the next week or so. All of this goes in through their PICC line (Google it!), which is fantastic because that lasts a lot longer than an IV, I have learned. 

There is a whole lot of amazingly clever stuff that is keeping our boys alive. I am sure some of it must be overkill. I'm not complaining that we have the iPhone 5 of the ventilator world (that's it in the background in the picture of Aly and Charlie having "kangaroo care"), as long as it doesn't forget that its main job is to keep them breathing.

Class dismissed.
(D)