What Is Left Before We Go Home

Before we can go home, Rowan needs to:

• Have his sedation medications weaned.  When he goes home we are hoping he won’t need more than Tylenol and Aspirin and maybe a blood pressure med. (They are working on this)
• Switch his blood pressure medication to one that he can take home if he needs it. (They are working on this)
• Feeding Solution – MAIN GOAL

Feeding is the thing that may take some time.  We think about eating in a very simplistic way, but a lot has to happen.  Rowan needs to be able to move liquids from the front of his mouth to the back.  He needs to build up his sucking ability.  He needs to be able to swallow once he gets food to the back of his mouth and his stomach needs to adjust to having food in it and moving it to the next stage of digestion.

Speech therapists are going to come down and help Rowan strengthen his mouth muscles so he will be better prepared for eating.  Meanwhile, they will give Rowan food through his NJ tube (this tube goes past the stomach a little).  When his digestive system is awake and moving food through it at full feeds (somewhere between 30 and 40mL per hour) they will start testing Rowan to see if he is capable of sucking in food, moving it to the back of his mouth, and swallowing down the correct tube to the stomach. 

This could be a very long process.  This could go relatively well.  We have no way of predicting right now.

The cool thing is that Rowan is now in the annex of the CICU.  He is still monitored by the same staff, but this is the next step to being completely out of intensive care and in a normal hospital room for a while.  It may not be too long until he is in 7 West instead of 7 CICU.  We can hold him whenever we want now and he is breathing without any support.

We’re beginning our plans for Rowan’s “Welcome Home” party – cuz it’s gonna happen!