It’s been a week already since Peanut had her March check-up at the UIHC. Her “official” weight is now 14 lb 4 oz – she’s gaining at a rate that puts her back on the charts for her age. The big news of the day was that Peanut’s team has decided that she has progressed to the point that her central line is no longer needed and can be removed next week. For adults, this is normally a fairly simple procedure that involves numbing the area and, after freeing the line from any scar tissue, carefully pulling it out. Given Peanut’s size and age, and the way her skin has healed around the line, her procedure will be slightly more involved. While the doctors are optimistic it will be a same-day procedure, Peanut will need to be sedated while the line is removed. Since a surgeon’s schedule is a difficult thing to pin down, we won’t know exactly when the surgery will be until late today. If all goes smoothly, we’re hoping to take Peanut to the hospital early Monday morning and have her sleeping in bed at home by the end of the day.

The other change stemming from last week’s visit centers around Peanut’s meals. We’ve transitioned from her long time meal plan to something a little different to help her output consistency around the clock. Instead of feeding Peanut 5 small meals between 7 and 7 each day with her bottle of milk and then just a bottle of milk every three hours through the night, we’re now feeding her a “green bean shake” every three hours around the clock.

Green Bean Shake

She still get’s three meals of baby cereal throughout the day, but the shakes are an attempt to keep Peanut’s inputs and outputs a little more consistent throughout the day – something we need to do before her intestines can be reconnected. (It’s easier on Peanut to feed her a shake in the middle of the night when she’s half asleep than it is to put her in her high chair and convince her to take beans off of a spoon.) The shakes are made of breast milk, pregestimil formula powder, green beans, and a bit of salt – and according to the DW, it tastes worse than it sounds – mainly due to the special formula powder. The good news is that Peanut doesn’t seem to mind the taste.

“When I Get Teeth Feed Me Beef”