Llama llama that's enough! (93 days)

I suspect most of our readers are unfamiliar with the "Llama Llama" series of children's books, but in one of the stories, the mother (Llama Mama) chastises the toddler (Llama Llama) after being frightened by his theatrical behavior. Although it is no fault of his own, I find myself equally exasperated with the constant barrage of minor dramas Bryce has been experiencing.

The latest brouhaha occurred this morning, when Bryce's occupational therapist stopped by to determine why he was struggling during bottle feedings. She identified a minor cleft palate (not to be confused with the commonly associated cleft lip) as the source of the trouble. When he's bottling, the milk doesn't always make it to the back of his throat; instead, it passes through a hole in the roof of his mouth and into his nose, which causes him to choke. As a consequence, Bryce will likely choke more frequently and have more reflux problems than an average preemie until he's old enough (about a year) to have the cleft surgically repaired.

As if that wasn't enough, the doctor also noticed that Bryce is "tongue tied", which means that the little piece of tissue (called the frenulum) that connects his tongue to the floor of his mouth is too short. Apparently, they're going to fix the problem tomorrow -- with a pair of scissors (*cringe*).

If you could bear to read this far, I've saved the day's good news for last. Bryce's breathing support has been pretty much as low as it can go (1/8L @ 21-25%) for the past couple days, and while the nurses were changing his clothes today, they forgot to reattach his nasal cannula to the spigot that provides the oxygen. For the next hour or so, Bryce was breathing completely unassisted, and no one noticed because his oxygen saturation was still 90% or higher! Go, twinkie! Print this post