May is Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month!

I have to find new childcare for Gesina because Trish is moving to California :-( In my ad for a new childcare provider, I describe Gesina as a cause, that being Gesina's childcare provider is being part of Team Gesina. Now, I've found that Gesina's medical issues are their very own cause. May is Pediatric Stroke Awareness month! You can expect random facts posted on my Facebook wall for the rest of the month as I also learn more about the fact that kids have strokes too.  For example, did you know that stroke is the sixth leading cause of death in children? Bam! Look at me dropping knowledge on you ;-)

My little survivor is nearing 5 months now and we are still adding more doctors to the mix. We saw her GI doctor this morning and she is recommending an official swallow study (finally!) and sending us to the "feeding clinic" in Milwaukee. Oddly, this clinic seems to be staffed by clinical psychology graduate students so I'm interested to see what this is all about. Gesina is in about the 13th percentile with weight but in the 45th percentile in height. She is "proportional" as my GI doctor put it but we are watching her weight closely. We've been doubling the formula in her bottle and in a way, I think she knows that as she now only takes about 10 ounces a day... yup, you've read that correctly. While most babies her age are nearing 30 ounces a day, my little weight conscious infant is fighting me to take a third of that amount. And before we doubled her formula? Oh then she took about 18 ounces a day! Trish said it best when she described it as "Gesina doesn't seem to make the connection that a bottle makes the hunger go away." That's exactly how I would describe feeding Gesina. She doesn't seem to realize that she needs to eat for a reason. It's like she thinks this is an annoying demand on her that I keep pestering her with. If only that annoying lady would quit shoving bottles and syringes with nasty medicine in my mouth then I'd quit having to throw it all up and could just sit in my play yard kicking away in my activity gym...

Next up, appointment with the hematologist. I THINK I'll learn more about the genetic findings about Prothrombin mutation. If I'm reading her latest discharge papers correctly, she has this genetic mutation from my side of the gene pool and it has nothing to do with her stroke. At least, I think her discharge papers say she has this! We shall see. Also, she gets to spend some quality time with grandma and grandpa. To top it off, tonight she gets to try PEAS! With a spoon! I'll have to post a picture after that happens now that my new phone is up and running and I can take pictures again (never put your iphone in the washing machine).