Responsive Doctors

Harper on her morning walk


Today I am thankful for our doctors that respond so quickly when we need them. That being said, Harper has had an interesting twenty-four hours.

Jared had to travel for work so Harper and I had dinner with Honey and Grandy last night. When we got home, I got Harper's bath ready. I always take her O dressing off last, just before taking off her diaper so that she doesn't get too cold. When I took the Co-Flex (top bandage) off, I noticed that the gauze wrap underneath was bloody. This was a first. We've also been noticing a goopy area that has been slowly increasing in goopiness over the last week. Well, last night the goopy was extreme goopy. After a momentary panic, I took a picture and texted it to Jared for some input. I then called my parents who were at the house in about a minute, followed by a call to our pediatrician's office. Fortunately, we had a check-up appointment with Dr. McCray already scheduled for today. The pediatrician on-call first told me that I needed to head straight to the ER. We talked this through for a little while since the ER was the last place I wanted us to be. I envisioned that turning into a complete nightmare. Once he realized that I had the situation under control, he said I could wait the twelve hours until our appointment but needed to check Harper through out the night to make sure she wasn't still bleeding, running a fever or noticing a change in her temperament. As you can imagine, this made for a lovely night's worth of sleep for me! Steve let me borrow my mom for the night so we had a girl's sleep over, just in case we had to make a midnight run to the hospital.
She slept much better than I did

Harps made it just fine through the night so off to Dr. McCray's we went this morning. Here's the appointment in a nutshell:
The blood wasn't a concern. This seemed to be caused from some of her scabbing ripping off a little earlier that planned. The goopiness is a concern. There are two areas to watch so we've cultured the goop (and yes, goop is my medical term) and are waiting for the results. Dr. McCray made a call to Dr. Cass, our pediatric surgeon in Houston for some input. I'll get to those details in a second. Harper's weight gain is "adequate". Ugh, I don't like adequate. This is coming from an A student. I like A+'s. Adequate is more like a C-. Not failing but not great. She's 10 lbs 12 oz and has dropped back into the 12th percentile so we're going to discuss a little more weight gain strategy at her 4 month appointment.

Harpie and I headed back home to wait for some input. We got a call from Dr. Cass this afternoon wanting to know the details. After a goop explanation, we discussed trying a new strategy. The new plan? Re-start the betadine treatment each night until the goop clears. Continue to wrap the O with the Co-Flex but use telfa (a non-stick pad - kind of like the cotton part of a band-aid) before applying the gauze so that the goop isn't drying on the gauze and then pulling off the scab. We'd prefer the scab to fall off naturally than to be pulled off. Once we are goop-free, we are going to start using silvadene. Silvadene or Silver sulfadiazine is a cream often used on burn victims. It kills a wide variety of bacteria but will keep the omphalocele wet whereas the betadine was a drying agent. We're also pushing our visit to Houston up so it looks like we'll be headed back in the next couple of weeks as opposed to the beginning of December. Dr. Cass wants to check out the O in person and make sure we're on the right path.

So today, I am thankful that we have doctors who responded so quickly, made Harper a priority in their day and put this mom's mind at ease.