Before I get to the bad news, let me just say that his numbers looked good all day, they were able to stay stable (with good gases) and wean a little (without affecting his gases). The sedation strategy seems to be working for now, though he's such a strong (and big) baby that normal doses aren't always doing the job. For example, they put him on a drip of a new paralytic today. Protocol says that they need to stop the drip once an hour and wait for the baby to move, to make sure they're not overreacting. Andrew was moving all four limbs while still under a full drip. He wasn't awake enough to cause himself trouble, but it means he's strong and stubborn.
The bad news is that they put him back on the nitric oxide today. It wasn't unexpected, but we were hoping to avoid it. They did a chest ultrasound and apparently it showed some pulmonary hypertension. Though his numbers all looked good, they think having him on the NO will allow them to wean more easily, without worrying about the hypertension. We'll see how it pans out in the next few days.
About Me
- JR
- D's husband. Andrew's dad. Son, friend, cousin, nephew, grandson....the list goes on.
About This Blog
This blog was originally created to disseminate information about Andrew, our son who was born on June 15, 2007. Andrew was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) that allowed abdominal organs (stomach, intestines, etc) to migrate into his chest cavity during development. This prohibited normal lung growth, making it difficult for him to live without significant life support, including a ventilator, a lung bypass machine called ECMO, and a long list of medications.
Andrew spent the next five months at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, undergoing multiple operations for the hernia repair, intestinal rearrangement, stomach tube insertion, etc. Multiple attempts to help him breathe on his own without a ventilator were unsuccessful due to a number of anatomical and developmental difficulties. Andrew's failure to progress and an abundance of overwhelmingly unfavorable test results led us to remove him from life support and let nature take its course on November 19, 2007.
We greatly appreciate the time we were able to spend with Andrew, and this blog continues as a source for information, a tribute to his memory, and a continuation of our lives without him present. From the emotional to the mundane, our lives have been forever changed by his presence; those lives are now chronicled here.
No comments:
Post a Comment