Khloe Update Days 110 thru 121...Sad times and setbacks!

I'm sure some of you have been on edge about what will happen next in the life of Khloe. So far it has been fairly smooth sailing with few bumps in the road and most of them were early on, but this last week, that has all changed. Khloe has been doing great. She got off oxygen as most of you know and was making great progress with her bottles and doing better every day. Around the day of our last post which was on the morning of September 21, Khloe developed a bad case of Thrush. For those of you who may not know what this is, it is a yeast infection that affects the tongue and is painful and on top of that she had also developed a yeast infection on her bum. Despite her new illness, she still did ok with her bottles, though not as good as she was doing.  They started her on antibiotics immediately on her tongue and a cream for her bum, which failed to take care of her Thrush, but her bum cleared up quickly, so they tried another for her Thrush which had the same outcome. Having tried two very strong and effective antibiotics and failed, they decided to try a third approach which is a non-prescription old school over the counter medicine called Gentian Violet and when I say old school I'm talking mid 1800's. Gentian Violet is basically a dye they use in inks for pens and printer ink as well as using it to dye bacteria on those glass slides in hospital labs so they can study them under a microscope. It was found to have and healing and anti-bacterial effects and was used quite commonly for Thrush and on open wounds, and the only real side effect is temporary purple dying of the mouth. A day or two after starting this third approach Khloe had started doing worse with her bottles and stopped taking her binky, which she loved, completely. About Tuesday, I think it was, she stopped eating completely and had to have all her feeds through the tube in her nose and started having serveral "AB's". They stopped the medicine and found that it had worked to kill the Thrush and started treating her for reflux, thinking it was causing her throat and mouth to hurt. During this time she has been very irritable and sad and I can't say I blame her. Saturday she had a new development, some sort of canker sores on the sides of her tongue. They are not sure exactly what caused the sores, but the doctors have a theory that it was the Gentian Violet because they researched it and they had to go back to 1970 to find any information regarding this and it was found that it had occurred on a few times. They are having a Dermatologist check it out just to make sure so they have a second oppinion. She has been doing a little better since Saturday and has taken some of her bottle, though it is very minimal and she still won't take her binky and her "AB's have pretty much stopped. If she doesn't get better with her bottles, they will put a G-tube in her stomach which is surgically installed in her stomach and has a hookup on the outside of her body so when we feed her she can drink as much as she wants and the rest we would hook up to the G-tube and it would go directly into her stomach. It's much safer than the tube in her nose and would only be temporary and would be taken out once she starts eating all her bottle. It's a pretty minor procedure and they do it right in the NICU at her bedside and we've been told the babies recover pretty quickly from it, but she will have to be put back on a ventilator for the procedure. This last week has delayed her going home for a while and we are not sure when we will be home. She is making improvement and hopefully will bounce right back. She is now 4 months old today, October 3rd, and she weighs 8 lbs 7 oz. She is 19 inches long and her head is 14 inches around. She is so big, so short, and so cute. I will try and get some recent pictures on her soon so keep checking back and in the mean time, please keep her in your prayers. That's all for now. Thanks for all the love and prayers.