Ian update 3-26

After finishing my entry for last night/this morning, I realized it ends up being more about documenting this whole experience rather than just updating people on Ian's progress. While this is important for me to do right now as a form of therapy and it's something I'd like to share with him and Lila when they are older, I'm not sure all the people checking in on the blog to see how he is want to read it all. So I've decided to do 2 entries a day, if I've got time. One will be just his update and the other will be for me to get it all out.


So here's his update. I thought I'd look at where he is today compared to when he was moved to Westwood last Saturday. While Vladana (his fabulous doctor) & Julie (and the fabulous day nurse) were giving their updates to us today, I asked where we were compared to where we are now just to give me an idea of how far we've come in a week.

 

- In regards to his lungs, his oxygenation level has been constant for the past 36 hours or so.  His PO2 numbers have been above 100 and hitting 200.  Which is exactly where they want it to be.  He was running below 100 when he arrived. His lung x-ray's have also shown marketed improvements. I've uploaded the original, which is the one that is much more opaque, and the one from this morning showing them opening up quite a bit.

- When he arrived was on a ventilator, and they added Nitric Oxide however, he wasn't responding well.  They switched him to an oscillating ventilator. Regular ventilators push air into the lungs, then the body passively exhales.  The oscillating ventilator does both directions.  The difference is they use a lower pressure and much higher frequency.  The ventilator has been set to oscillate 10x per second.  It is weird to watch because it makes his whole little body appear to vibrate as though he'd put quarters in a Magic Fingers hotel bed.  Today however, he had a bit of a set back in his left lung.  It began collapsing a bit due to fluid build up.  This evening they rotated him and switched back to a regular ventilator.  We spoke to his doctor late this evening. He has responded very well, the lung has reopened and he may remain on the regular ventilator.  They've also lowered the amount of oxygen they are having to give him from 100% to 80%.

- His initial BMP figure was 4700 and has dropped to 300.  Normal for most babies is under 100.  While we don't fully understand this technically, it is an indicator of the amount of stress his body is under.

- On Monday he experienced a "grade 3" brain hemorrhage.  The net of this we're told is about 50/50 whether there will be any longer term consequences.  The positive side of this is that they've done daily head ultrasounds and the bleeding has not become worse since.

- His mean blood pressure was in the 30's when he arrived and it is now running between 55 and 70, exactly where they want it.  As a result he's been weaned, in part, from some of his medications for blood pressure.

- His blood wasn't clotting well at all when he arrived and he required regular transfusions of blood products.  In the last couple days he's improved dramatically and only required intermittent blood products.

- Yesterday he rec'd lots of lab work back with confirmation that he had not contracted any of known viruses they were looking for.  This allowed them to drop several of his antibiotics.