Failure to thrive

Most of my time in NBSCU, I was classified as “Failure to thrive”. I had to have my surgery– I couldn’t eat until then – which of course kept me in NBSCU while I waited, and even after that I couldn’t leave until I could suck and swallow, but overall I was considered failing to thrive.


Finally after 5 weeks, I had my surgery to fix the duodenal atresia. Up until then, I had been fed through a feeding tube and I hadn’t even tried to suck or swallow, so after my surgery when they finally gave me food in my mouth, I didn’t know what to do with it. This was all too new.

And I didn’t do so well after surgery either. I third-spaced.

“Normally, body fluids are distributed between the interstitial compartment (tissues) and intravascular compartment ( plasma). In third-spacing, body fluids collect in a "third" body compartment that isn't normally perfused with fluids. For example, with severe burns, fluids may pool in the burn site and cause depletion of the fluids in the first and second compartments. With patients who undergo long, difficult operations in large surgical fields, third-space fluids may collect and the patient may become intravascularly depleted despite large volumes of intravenous fluid and blood replacement.“

I looked like the Michelin Man. And then got pneumonia and started to really go down hill.

I remember that mom and dad had the “dreaded conversation” with the Dr’s but fortunately, I never got quite that bad. I did like to scare everyone though….

One time when dad was holding me when all the alarms went off . Alarms going off weren’t really that unusual because I was “desating” (decreasing oxygen saturation in my blood) all the time, but this time ….. I didn’t come back and the alarms just kept going off. The nurses came running and took me from dad and worked on me for what seemed like forever. Finally I was rosy pink again but it turned out that I almost died.

I had fun in NBSCU. I kept everyone running but after a while, I improved and eventually I could almost eat too. I had to be fed every hour, no more than an ounce and burped in between…and I did not like to be burped….but I was eating so I could go home.