Health updates

After five days of vomiting, starting with - you guessed it - formula (Neocate), by Sunday morning we had had enough and decided ultimately that exclusive breastmilk seems to be the best choice for Brenna right now. We're having to revert back to smaller amounts over longer periods (2 oz over an hour) because her little tummy is so irritated, but hopefully we can start increasing that soon. (We had gotten close to 90-100 over an hour before trying formula again. Guess we've really learned our lesson the hard way huh? Brenna + any formula ever made = bad bad decision.)

Brenna's skin also rapidly deteriorated from the end of the week into the weekend, leading us to contact her dermatologist on Saturday. He put her on a new antibiotic that targets both staph and strep, guessing by the photos I send him that one of those bacteria was making an unwelcome home on her skin. Thank goodness she responded quickly and she looks great now, and seems to be feeling much better too - stretching out more, opening her hands and not screaming in pain when touched, which is always a plus.

I'm often asked how we know she has a skin infection... At this point, we know her skin and know what it should look like.

This is not what it should look like.

(her knee and shin)

Usually Brenna's skin doesn't just change from good to bad like this really quickly. Typically, we'll notice first that it just feels a little different in bath - maybe the layers aren't rubbing off like usual or maybe it just feels a little more "waxy". Then we'll notice a couple of areas look a little concerning... and then finally all of a sudden her whole body looks terrible and she's miserable, and then after even just a round or two of medicine, there will be so much improvement.

It's difficult to discern at first if it's an progressing infection or if maybe we just rubbed a certain area a little harder than we should have during bath. And we try not to overreact at every little change because her skin does go through different stages of thickness or color, etc. We are very grateful to have a dermatologist who trusts our judgement and is willing to be in close contact with us during off hours (since Brenna always seems to get sick on weekends!)

In other news, Brenna underwent her ultrasound today on her stomach area and had bloodwork done...so hopefully we will know the results of some of these tests soon!