Million Dollar Baby

Today Daddy nicknamed me the "Million Dollar Baby". Before I was known as the "Miracle Baby" because it was a miracle that Mommy found someone like Daddy and also that Mommy got pregnant so quickly...I was a Maui Miracle.

Well Daddy spoke with the hospital finance department today and got an estimate of my current bill for the 36 days I have spent in the NICU....over half a million dollars for hospital charges but that includes my surgery and all the extra special care I've gotten! I get 24/7 attention from all the wonderful NICU nurses, who are all so kind and sweet even when they poke me with needles. I have great Respiratory Tech's who suck the boogers out of my nose and help me breath better. I have fantastic nurse practitioners, neonatologist and hospitalist doctors who make sure I get the best treatments and medicines to make me comfortable (more fentanyl please) and help grow. I get excellent housekeeping staff that keep the NICU spotless. I have attentive ward clerks that make sure visitor are checked and everyone practices good hygiene. I have caring social workers who check up on how Mommy and Daddy are doing makes sure they know what services are available. When the Hospital CEO stopped by for a visit two weeks ago, Daddy and I told him he should be very proud of the NICU team and how empathetic and professional everyone is in helping the families through this stressful time.

To put the costs in perspective, I think staying in the NICU at CPMC would be like staying in a fantasy suite at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. I checked and the Real World Suite (where the cast of MTV's Real World lived in 2006) costs $5k per night Sun-Thurs and $10k per night Fri-Sat...so that's $45K per week or $6428 per night. My average daily cost in the NICU is $6991 per day full service food and fentanyl...those would be extra at the Palms. So I am like a Baby Rockstar living it up in the NICU like Paris Hilton does Vegas....but I am cuter and my videos are better!

By the time I have to leave the NICU, I am sure that the hospital charges and physician services bills combined will be over a million dollars but Mommy and Daddy think I am worth every penny and more! So I told Daddy today that when (not if) he loses the Biggest Loser/Gainer Challenge...he only has to get my a Toyota Prius for my 16th birthday.

Doh!

It's was a busy weekend...eating and visit's from Uncle Timo and Auntie Wendy...thank you Auntie Wendy for the nice flowers! My milk feedings has now increased to 10mL every three hours and it's moving up 1mL every shift. My intestines are keeping up so far but all this chugging of milk and activity over the weekend has tuckered me out a bit.

My heart rate has been a bit high over the last couple of days and my oxygen saturation dipped a bit yesterday....doh! So Dr. Kathy decided to be cautious and put me on some IV antibiotics and do a blood culture to see if an infection is the culprit. Daddy looked a bit stressed when he found out that one of the antibiotics was vancomycin. When Daddy was a hospital pharmacist, he said vancomycin was used in really sick people but when he spoke with Dr. Kathy, she explained that she was concerned that if I did have an infection, my central line maybe the source and one of the main bugs would be coagulase negative staphylococcal (CONS) and the treatment protocol is vancomycin. So I get to have vancomycin for the next two days along with cefotaxime (another broad spectrum antibiotic) to cover all the bases....these two "kills bugs dead" like RAID the bug spray. If nothing turns up in my blood culture, I get to stop the antibiotics but if something does show up then I will need a full course. Daddy said a full course is good so that I don't give any bugs the chance to develop resistance to the antibiotics.

I wonder if I can get Dr. Kathy to order a couple of bolus doses of fentanyl?

One Month

I am one month old today! Mommy made this beautiful cashmere blanket. She actually made it twice...because Mommy never crochet before she started this blanket and made it very long like a scarf. So she had to take it apart and start all over again. But I love it! I think Mommy should take the advice Daddy gave my surgeon, measure twice and cut once.

It's been a crazy first 30 days and I really love my Mommy and Daddy for coming to the hospital everyday to visit me. Especially Mommy who is making me milk and pumping so I have lots to drink....she is so tired gets up in the middle of the night while Daddy is sleeping....THANKS MOMMY!!!

I am up to 3mL of milk every 3 hours and put on 2 ounces last night....victory is in sight!

Milk Coma

You never know how good you had it until you don't have it anymore....boy did I miss drinking Mommy's milk. So happy they increased my feeding to 2mL every 3 hours. I am so happy I got the hiccups!

Head Scratch

Mommy thinks I am smiling because she is scratching my head...but I am laughing at how she sounds....hahaha!

But the head scratching does feel good.

Just Chilling

What a long couple of weeks...I need a vacation! Finally got rid of most of the IV's. Just one PICC line left in my right foot for my TPN and the OG tube which I try to imagine as a extra long straw connected to an endless milk margarita on the rocks with no sodium chloride. The good news today is that I restarted feeding on Mommy's milk, 1mL every 4 hours. The bad news is that Daddy is one step closer to losing the Biggest Loser/Gainer Challenge! Oh...it's back on and Baby Girl is hungry. You try not eating for over two weeks...I am going to be on that milk like a cop on a doughnut.

As you can see from the graph below, even being on the injured reserve list for two weeks I am dominating the dojo. Daddy had a good drop the days after my surgery but that yo-yo dieting is not sustainable. At his age, he needs to focus on one pound a week, smooth and steady. I predict that I will be pulling away in early July and packing on the ounces as my feeding increases. Based on my weight today of 1380 grams, I have gained 500 grams about 1.1 pounds. Daddy needs to drop 5.5 lbs to keep pace. Fat chance (no pun intended) with Daddy weighing in at 201.5 lbs.

The Color Purple

Now that they have stopped my fentanyl, I am cold turkey and sometimes get the shakes. So I got this purple binky which helps soothes me. Daddy was commenting to Mommy that there must be something about the color purple that must be soothing to kids because when he was a kid there was this McDonald's character Grimace that was this big fuzzy purple fellow that was Ronald McDonald's sidekick helping foil the evil Hamburgler. Then there is that purple Barney, who is a friendly Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur with an optimistic attitude...I guess the color purple makes everything just better and kid friendly.

I got my ostomy bag, which is like a camelback water container sealed over by my open wound covering my small intestine. Now Daddy and Mommy won't have to poop and scoop when I get home like they have to do with the doggies. I can't wait to meet all the doggies - Ewok, Wolfie and Sweetie (left to right). I am about the size of Sweetie the gray toy poodle right now. I hope to be as big as Ewok (lying down on the left) when I get home.



I got rid of the nasal canula so you can see more of my cute button nose and I am breathing on my own again. Looking forward to some Mommy's milk hopefully soon...it's been two weeks since they stopped feeding me to give my intestines a rest. I'm practicing hard on the binky, so Mommy better start turning up the power on the breast pump.