Ellie had an appointment for a sedated echocardiogram last Tuesday. I was concerned that they wouldn't be able to do it because of all her hospital stays and it seemed like she had a cold but it was all good. The echo showed that basically everything had stayed the same since her last one except for one thing. The occluder that they placed in her left SVC in October was leaking. They couldn't tell much more so she is going to need to have an MRI done. It looks like surgery is going to be pushed off until the springtime, maybe March or April, when she can have all the testing completed, grow some more, and get out of RSV season. After the echo we were scheduled to re-do her swallow study. She was still a little groggy and they were afraid that she would fail it anyway so we rescheduled it for the next day.

Ellie wasn't totally cooperative for her swallow study because she wasn't in the mood to eat. But from what they were able to see that went down, nothing went in to her lungs. We are still thickening her milk a little because the times that she has had milk without any thickening agent, she has started to cough a little. At least if she is aspirating something, she is showing signs now and responding to liquids that are going down the wrong tube.

For now, we are hoping she can stay healthy and avoid any more hospital stays. Her last blood test indicated that she is still a little neutropenic (has low neutrophils) and we will have to repeat it next week to see if they keep coming up. At least it is better than where she was at in the hospital when she had no neutrophils.

Ellie turned 5 months old yesterday. She seems like a normal, healthy baby just by looking at her (except for the oxygen tube) and is pretty much on schedule developmentally. We're sad that we haven't been able to show her off and she has only met a few people, not including all the doctors and nurses! :)