Life with Leo: 1/3/ - 1st Dr. Visit

It seems weird to say 1st doctor visit when talking about Leo, but today we had our first visit with Dr. Emm who will be Leo's pediatrician. Dr. Emm is also Sammie's pediatrician and we really like him for her, but she has only ever saw him for well child visits so we were a little worried about how he would handle a complex kid like Leo. So far we are pleasantly surprised. We walked in expecting to have to provide his life history (like we did for several people we saw in the NICU), but Dr. Emm was on top of it. He had been following Leo each week and only asked for updates since he left the hospital. Dr. Emm will be Leo's health coordinator making sure he sees all the right specialists. He said everything looks good with the reinserted g-tube and we agree it seems to be working well.

Last night we saw our home health nurse for the 1st time. Ter and I both thought the visit was worthless and we spent over an hour just explaining Leo's basic issues to her and she is not even the nurse we will see every time. Dr. Emm said we should continue the visits to at a minimum get weight checks. Leo's feedings will need to increase based on his growth. We agreed to continue to have them come.

Overall, we are settling in nicely at home. Sammie loves Leo and is constantly kissing him and bringing him toys. It is just really good to be under one roof. So far Leo has been doing pretty well. In the hospital the last week and 1/2 his oxygen was stating really well. Since we have been home it has dropped a little and frequently sets off the alarm on our home monitor for borderline issues. We have not been tempted at all yet to use his oxygen which is good considering when he was sick at the hospital we were using it all the time to get his stats up. I hope he continues to improve so maybe he can come off the monitor at least during the day.

Leo's sleeping has been unpredictable. Last night he was upset from his 11:30 feeding to the 2:30 feeding but then pretty calm until the 5:30 feeding. The first night he slept well in his bed, but last night he was not interested. Between him eating everything threes hours and pumping, it is a little challenging to get rest, but Ter and Mom have been tons of help making sure everyone gets some sleep.

Happy Leo is home!