Mackenzie Jane- Update 3

Mackenzie has been quite the busy girl lately! We've had 4 different appointments with 4 different doctors/specialists in the last 3 weeks. Our first appointment was with the Neonatologist at the Manning clinic at UMMC. Her doctor was very pleased with her progress. He saw no signs of problems right now which was great news, however he was very clear in our discussion, that it is still very early in her recovery, so he is cautiously optimistic about her long term prognosis. At the same appointment, we also met with a dietitian to go over MJ's dietary needs and recommendations for her feeding schedule. Overall she was very happy with Mackenzie's weight gain and daily intake, we did however switch her to a sensitive formula to make it easier to digest and hopefully reduce her spitting.

Our next appointment was the intake meeting and evaluation meeting with the First Steps early intervention program in Meridian. Both an occupational and physical therapist assessed her progress and also were pretty happy with her progress. The only test she didn't ace was holding her head for a minute when on her belly, which they said, no two month old passes but its part of the test. So going forward, we will have a monthly check-up at the house with the therapist to keep monitoring her development. The speech therapist will also be coming to the house this week to evaluate her and see if she needs any help right now.

This week MJ had her two month check-up with our Pediatrician, she is 22.75 in tall and 11lbs 9 ounces. She is right around the 50th percentile for all of her statistics. She got her first full round of vaccinations and was not pleased. Other than that, she got yet another fantastic report from the doc who again was very pleased with her.

Our last appointment was Wednesday back at Batson Children's at UMMC to see her Pediatric Neurologist. He did a full exam and again was pleased with her progress. No signs of any seizures since leaving the NICU and no favoring to either side of her body, no unusual or excessive body tone or weakening. Again, he is cautiously optimistic about our little girls future. We also got the good news that the EEG that was completed the day we got discharged came back normal, which was great because her initial one on her first day after the cooling treatment was abnormal. So for the time being Mackenzie will continue to take her anti seizure meds and as she grows, she will auto ween as her weight increases. In November, we will go back to have another MRI done to check her brain injury and verify that her injury locations haven't grown, and hopefully have shrunk. As long as things look good there, then we can hopefully stop the anti-seizure meds.

We will also go back to UMMC in November to see the Pediatric Cardiologist to make sure that the small holes in her heart closed. They weren't really worried about it, all babies have them at birth. But given her medical history they want to double check all of her development to ensure that they won't become a problem down the road. We will make a third trip back to Batson just before the holidays to see the Neonatologist for our next follow up.

So overall, the best news we could ask for given our circumstances. We are far from the end of this journey but things continue to head in the right direction. Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers for our little girl. It means more than you know!