Regarding Henry

Firstly, don't worry, at time of writing, Henry is fine. Given the way our reporting has gone recently, I suspect that some of you read that opening and internally said "oh, no... ". It's just a blog about Henry to make sure you all know we haven't forgotten him and to plagiarize the 1991 movie title. (Did you know it was written by JJ Abrams?)

Secondly, today, Friday, was a good day and, although Charlie's bradycardia episodes were not entirely eliminated, things really look on the right track. We'll see.

Henry didn't have as eventful a week as his brother but there was some progress. A few weeks ago, Henry perforated his bowel and had a drain put in. Later, he had another drain put in by Interventional Radiology. I have now worked out that the blog Aly wrote about that day never made it onto the site. I am not sure how to correct that. (In the meantime, on the same day, Dec 3, Henry went to IR and Charlie had an MRI. Interestingly this is still the only day that either have left the room since they were born). Back to Henry's tummy - he had these drains inserted and surgery have been letting things be for a while before making a plan; until this week. Drain 1 came came out and it has been agreed to inch the "IR drain" out slowly next week. You can see the drain in the photo below;

The drain, in theory, extracts anything that leaks into the abdomen. Henry hasn't been leaking for a while so his drains are now not really serving a purpose. However, poor Henry still has a big tummy. The reason is that they think his intestine is blocked (probably with scar tissue from the previous perforation). Although he isn't being fed, there is still air and juices and gunk in there. That should be dealt with by his replogle tube. The long term solution is a surgery but we want him to be big and strong enough to handle that so we have another "balance" to deal with. What is the optimum time to leave him growing but only getting IV nutrition before operating? In the meantime, we wait and say Henry is "fine", even though he weighs just over two pounds and doesn't have a working digestive system. 

(D)