January 7th, 2026

Ruth had a nice quiet day, other than a blood and platelet transfusion. Visually, the stomach has stayed the same. The doctor has been a little disappointed that we’re still having to transfuse platelets (blood clotting mechanisms), so he’s considering changing her fungal infection meds—could be fungal or the stomach is just still having a really hard time. She’s got another stomach ultrasound Monday to update the surgeon, barring unforeseen changes.

Ruth is also outgrowing her tracheal ventilator tube, leading to some leaking of air, so they’re planning to replace it on Friday for a slightly larger one. This process does take a while, so we’re praying she handles being without supplemental air for a while.

It’s likely going to be a long road before her stomach has recovered enough for us to think about giving her breast milk. For now we’re solely on IV nutrition. The one drawback with this is she doesn’t get enough calcium (all our modern medicinal advancements still haven’t figured out how to effectively administer calcium via IV). So keep her little bones in your prayers as well—her recent bloodwork has shown that she’s getting susceptible for fragile bones, so we’ll just keep being careful with her. She’s going to get a “fragile bones” placard on her incubator, which I’ve seen before and initially misread as “fragile bowels”. Guess she has those too!

Thank you for your prayers.