Thursday, August 30, 2007

Thursday, August 30th 8:00am - Day 37

Tuesday night there were no big changes. On Wednesday Kathryn remained "stable" as well. Her chest xray on Wednesday was the best one she has ever had according to Dr. Strange. As of yesterday, the results on the bacteria cultures were still negative showing no infection yet. Her urine output was returning to her normal, blood work looked normal, oxygen saturation looked good, and her ventilator settings were down. I finally found out the name of the drug that kind of "paralyzed" her that she is on - it's Pavulon.

Well, they weened her from that yesterday, which is a good thing. However, she is now more alert and looking around and moving little tiny bits, so she gets "mad" when they mess with her to take xrays, blood work, weigh ins, etc. Her "mad" spells basically means that she drops her oxygen saturation levels and they then have to bump up her oxygen percentage and ventilator settings until she can get back to normal. Then they slowly bring her back down. Each time she has a spell like this they call it a BPD spell - which stands for bronchopulmonary dysplasia - which is basically chronic lung disorder - somewhat common for preemies this small. Anyway, they think she is having these partly from coming off of the Pavulon, so they may consider upping her fentinel (her sedation medication) so that she is not as alert when she is awake. Our nurse last night described it like she is groggy on that medication.

She is still retaining some fluid, so she is a little "puffy" right now. But Dr. Strange says this is because she isn't moving a lot, she's on medications that contribute to that, she is having some lung difficulties, etc. She says it is not a pretty side effect, but it is not a medical concern at this point. She also had a blood transfusion yesterday evening, so she received lasix before the transfusion and then again 12 hours afterwards.

I talked to Dr. Strange this morning and she said that Kathryn had a rougher morning. She is a real "touch me not" since early this morning. Every time they touch her - for care, labs, etc. - she drops her oxygen sats. She says that this is not a critical thing at this time, that she has seen this with many babies. That's the reason for considering the increase in her fentinel to help relax her some more. Still, it's scary to hear that she is having the spells. I asked if the things she is experiencing are recoverable things - meaning can she recover from them or are they definitely life threatening. She reassured me that she can recover from these things, but that they are still very serious. They can lead to situations that babies have a very difficult time recovering from.

All in all, she is stable today right now. They also weighed her last night for the first time since last Saturday. They said that the weight could be inaccurate because she is retaining some fluid and did just have a transfusion, but it showed that she went from 1 #, 10 oz to 1 #, 14 oz. If this stays accurate, then she would have gained an entire pound since birth in 5 weeks.

Anyway, please pray for Kathryn. She is definitely doing better, but she is still not on the other side of this and still has a lot of progress to make.

Kelly

No comments: