Ian's update 4/3

Ian's a guy that likes to take things slow... which is fine with me, as long as there's progress.

This morning, they tried to wean his Nitric from 20 to 15 and he didn't like it. So they went back up to 20 and tried to begin slower after they got back a couple gasses that looked good. 20 to 18 he would tolerate fine. Dr. D said the majority of babies are able to be weaned from Nitric by now so that's why there were trying to be a little more aggressive with it. But she also said, as Dr. Vladana always did, that they follow the baby's lead and Ian let them know he needed a little slower pace.

While they are bringing down the Nitric, they are upping his Sildenafil which acts similarly to relax his arterial wall to decrease the pulmonary arterial resistance and pressure.

His Oxygen is @ 40% which I believe is the lowest they will go until he's off the Nitric. And he's still being moved regularly to help continue to clear the lungs.

Now his poor little foot has an IV in it, which I was surprised to see. I thought with the PICC line, they wouldn't have to use any other IV's but I guess the PICC doesn't support blood drawing because blood is too thick to go through the line. Sounds like they have to have different lines for different purposes. I guess that makes sense because when I was in the hospital for all that time, I had my IV for my Mag but they kept having to poke me to take my blood. It's better to do an IV for him as it's got to be less stressful on his body than having to be poked every time they need to take a blood gas reading.

In general, he looked well today and it seemed to be an okay day for him. His eyes were still doing a bit of rolling back when we got there. (my sister-in-law & mother-in-law drove me up today so they could see him as well) but the nurse let me know that she thinks it's just when he's sleepy and just waking up. And when he was truly awake, they looked better, although not perfect. When he was awake and more fully alert, his eyes were still making some strange movements but not as much rolling back into his head while opened, which is the most bothersome for us.

Dr. D told me I probably wouldn't get to hold him until he was off the Nitric. I told her, whenever he's ready. I'm not going to push anything. She said, she quite understands how I want to hold him and she would like that as well. She's a Mom and knows how it must feel. But, she's his best protector and that's exactly what I want her to be. So I will wait patiently until that time.