Stupid Weekend

They didn't end up restarting James's feedings, because his belly is still distended. Stopping the feedings has definitely made him more comfortable, though.

They're going to do the GI studies to see if there's a blockage anywhere. One possibility is that the opening from his previous surgery (the stoma) may have narrowed. Given the pattern that we've seen -- not much stool, many days of feeding, no clear evidence of other blockage on the X-rays -- this seems plausible to me, but of course this is based just on my own guess, not on any medical knowledge. (Also, according to Google, stoma strictures occur in about 2% of ostomy patients, and James seems to have a talent for hitting low probability events. I am going to encourage him to play the lottery when he's older.) It seems like this would be one of the easier things to fix, though I could be wrong about that.

But the very frustrating thing is that they don't do these studies on weekends, because it's not an emergency. I totally understand that no one loves to work on weekends, and that doctors have a tough job and a grueling schedule, and that they need to see their families too. But that means two more days that my son is hospitalized (and for which our family, and Blue Cross, and the state of North Carolina have to pay), two more days of increasing stress on his liver from being on IV fluids, two more days of having a central line IV which increases the risk of infection, two more days of not having the best developmental stimulation, two more days of delaying his skills at feeding by mouth -- so yes, it's not an emergency (and believe me, I'm grateful for that), but it's certainly not trivial either. I'm really angry about this. Just because he had the bad luck to have his problems on a Friday, we're being punished with this delay. It seems like there would be a way to schedule this so that sometimes, someone would work a weekend to help these babies get home sooner.