Fourth Day Post-Surgery Update

The past 24 hours have been a mixed bag. On the upside, Evie has made significant improvement nursing, beginning with the 11 pm feed last night. Since that feeding, she has been doing a decent-enough job breastfeeding that we have not needed to syringe-feed her…yay! Understandably, it is still difficult for her, so it takes about 45 minutes to complete each nursing session. Since she is not eating as much as she was pre-surgery, after the 45 minutes, I still have to pump for another 15. The way she nursed today is much closer to the way I thought she would nurse immediately after surgery (so…mm yeah, probably a little too optimistic on that front, haha).

I think we finally found the sweet spot with the amount of medication to give her. Throughout the day, we lowered the codeine dosage, and she reacted fine to that. We’ll continue to lower the codeine dosage each time, until we are rotating exclusively between Ibuprofen and regular Tylenol (and then we’ll start weaning her off those as well).

On the downside, I’m not feeling well. I’ve had a headache behind my eye all day, my back/neck are killing me, and I’ve been nauseated on and off. I don’t know if I’m getting sick, if my body is reacting to five days of high intensity with little sleep, or if my body is fatigued from staying in one awkward position for multiple hours per day while nursing her (or a combo of all three). I really hope it’s not the beginnings of a cold, because that would be so awful if I got her sick on top of everything else. Despite not feeling well, I’m encouraged she nursed a lot better today than yesterday. Even though it’s more arduous for me now because I’m nursing AND pumping, I definitely think we turned a corner in her recovery, and I’m willing to take one for the team! Praise God 🙂

So please pray for me to feel better, for Evie to stay healthy and continue on the path of healing, for her to move in the direction of nursing better and eating more, and for endurance for me and Sean.

Here are some photos from today:

Guess she's getting enough to eat...that's some legit spit up, haha!
Guess she’s getting enough to eat…that’s some legit spit up, haha!

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She still has the "I'm really high" look most of the time :)
She still has the “I’m really high” look most of the time 🙂

Next post:

Fifth Day Post-Surgery Update

Pre-Surgery:

Out of Cleft Field: Evie’s Cleft Adventures

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Melissa Felker

I blog to share my life, entertain, inspire, inform, encourage, challenge (both myself and others), and of course, for personal therapy - haha! I love to write about meaningful experiences and a wide range of topics I find interesting. I particularly enjoy sharing life in a raw and barely censored fashion because I highly value authenticity.

3 thoughts on “Fourth Day Post-Surgery Update”

  1. You need a shoulder rub. I am so serious that I will some and give you one if no one is there to do it. Fb me if you can:)

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