Of minor milestones and major progress

Dear Madeline,

You had a big afternoon, and I'm sure you didn't even know it! You gave Mom a lot of grief last night about not taking anything from a bottle. She tried just about everything to get you to take that pedialyte, from putting it in a syringe, to spoon-feeding it to you, to dibbling it down to you on a make-shift luge fashioned from your teething fish. Grandma and Grandpa Smith tried to help out by searching all the pharmacies in the area for flavored pedialyte and pedialyte freezer pops. You actually tolerated the spoon-feeding and freezer pops, and we kept up that routine through the morning and much of the afternoon. Until it happened.

After another bath and after Mom and Grandma Zukiewicz and Josie went home their afternoon visit, I offered the bottle to you. You resisted it for the first few moments, but then I was able to squirt some of the orange-y goodness onto your taste buds and you were hooked. You latched onto that bottle like a champ and drained the contents. Grandma Smith got the photographic evidence. I tried to reload, but you refused. Okay, no sense in forcing the issue. But we tried again in the early evening with the same result; you refused until that cherry flavored squirt hit your taste buds. You probably took about 1.5 ounces. Not ordinarily impressive but, considering where we've been, a terrific effort nonetheless.

Just after the nurses changed shifts, you took another bottle without any real fight at all, and promptly downed 34 milliliters. In about another hour, you drank down the remainder of the 2 ounce bottle and then another 1.25 ounces immediately after that. Of course, this is news I promptly shared with the nurses and the oncology resident, who then got right to paging the surgeons to get on to next steps. I'm not sure why they are being so conservative almost a week after your second surgery and not "letting" you move on to formula and baby food until tomorrow. I say, when you make progress like this you need to build up more momentum instead of letting it dissipate, but I haven't invested a third of my life studying medicine and completing residencies and fellowships so I guess I have to defer to those who did after voicing my input.

Can I just say that your spunk and vitality was on full display after you finished with the bottles? Maybe it was all just a sugar rush, but your playfulness, smiles and laughter made everyone who walked in giddy. What joy and what relief to see this from you. Sleep well tonight, Sweet pea.  Surgical rounds will come early tomorrow morning, and I'll grill them about next steps. And later, we meet with the treatment team to reevaluate you and hopefully get the green light to resume your treatment schedule. Let's make so much progress tomorrow that they want to discharge you by mid-week!

Love,
   Daddy