Busy, Busy, Busy Day
Before the Emma update, here is a Liz and Chad update... Liz started back with work this week. Her students have been good so far, although she has a lot of work to do to get caught up with where her students are, etc. She has been taking everything in stride. I continue to study for finals... I have an antitrust final this friday, and next week I have two more finals. The studying has gone well so far...
Well, it has been another 24 hours of excitement with Emma. To start with, Emma got a new home (actually, they just switched her incubator... standard procedure once a week). In addition, Emma started her infection medicine. At this point, there is no sign that an infection is still present, although they are continuing to do a blood culture to determine that for sure. However, most likely as a result of her infection Emma's heart murmur has reappeared. While it is not unheard of for the PDA to close on its own after the full drug treatment, we are not getting our hopes up. There is a good chance that Emma will have surgery when she is sufficiently healthy to address the murmur if it does not disappear w/in a couple days. Emma will continue the drug treatment until the doctors determine that there isn't an infection or that the infection has passed... which could be anywhere from 2 days to 20 days...
Emma continues to eat well... in fact, she is currently up to 5ml of milk every two hours. While Emma's weight hasn't gone up significantly yet, she is looking better and her stomach and disgestive system have become more adept at handling milk.
On another happier note, Emma does not have jaundice... one of the nurses said that the fact that it jaundice didn't reappear yesterday was the only real positive for Emma all day. However, because Emma has her mom's fair skin, sometimes the doctors get worried that she looks pale... then they look at her blood work, etc and realize that everything is fine.
Emma's lungs / breathing continued to deteriorate yesterday. After some blood work and an x-ray, the doctors decided to remove Emma's breathing tube and replace it with a bigger one. The doctor's decided on this course of action because the small tube was a likely culprit for some of Emma's current issues, and it is an easy thing to fix / eliminate from a possible source of issues. The doctors removed Emma's tube last night and installed oxygen tubes into her nose. The hope was that perhaps Emma was ok to come off the ventilator at this point. Emma remained off the ventilator for about one hour, at which point the blood work suggested that she needed to return to the ventilator. The doctors on call were all impressed w/ how Emma did sans ventilator though. So, the doctors installed a new tube last night, although this one is the next size up. Emma's lungs have rebounded nicely, and while her ventilator settings aren't back to where they were a couple days ago, her x-rays look great. In addition, I felt that she was more active and attentive this morning than she had been recently.
Finally, as a result of all the blood work that has been done the last couple days it appears an almost certainty that Emma will require an additional blood transfusion. I was told that I could donate to Emma (Liz can't... something about having just given birth eliminates her from contention). However, I was informed that there is a substantial cost associated w/ direct giving to a newborn... so, maybe I'll just run over the Red Cross this week for a general donation...
and now... pictures of emma sans breathing and feeding tube (note... her lips look a bit funny because she has had a tube stuck in her mouth for two weeks... we have been assured that infants are very pliable)...
First... Time to get my mouth and lungs suctioned...
Nose tubes for oxygen... Emma really didn't like these at all...
I always enjoy the pictures of Emma w/ something as a frame of reference... it reminds you how small Emma truly is (on that note, Liz and I could have sworn that one of Emma's new neighbors was at least 10 pounds... the baby looked huge... turned out the baby is just under six pounds... it seems our understanding of the "average sized" baby has become a bit warped over the past few weeks...)
Well, it has been another 24 hours of excitement with Emma. To start with, Emma got a new home (actually, they just switched her incubator... standard procedure once a week). In addition, Emma started her infection medicine. At this point, there is no sign that an infection is still present, although they are continuing to do a blood culture to determine that for sure. However, most likely as a result of her infection Emma's heart murmur has reappeared. While it is not unheard of for the PDA to close on its own after the full drug treatment, we are not getting our hopes up. There is a good chance that Emma will have surgery when she is sufficiently healthy to address the murmur if it does not disappear w/in a couple days. Emma will continue the drug treatment until the doctors determine that there isn't an infection or that the infection has passed... which could be anywhere from 2 days to 20 days...
Emma continues to eat well... in fact, she is currently up to 5ml of milk every two hours. While Emma's weight hasn't gone up significantly yet, she is looking better and her stomach and disgestive system have become more adept at handling milk.
On another happier note, Emma does not have jaundice... one of the nurses said that the fact that it jaundice didn't reappear yesterday was the only real positive for Emma all day. However, because Emma has her mom's fair skin, sometimes the doctors get worried that she looks pale... then they look at her blood work, etc and realize that everything is fine.
Emma's lungs / breathing continued to deteriorate yesterday. After some blood work and an x-ray, the doctors decided to remove Emma's breathing tube and replace it with a bigger one. The doctor's decided on this course of action because the small tube was a likely culprit for some of Emma's current issues, and it is an easy thing to fix / eliminate from a possible source of issues. The doctors removed Emma's tube last night and installed oxygen tubes into her nose. The hope was that perhaps Emma was ok to come off the ventilator at this point. Emma remained off the ventilator for about one hour, at which point the blood work suggested that she needed to return to the ventilator. The doctors on call were all impressed w/ how Emma did sans ventilator though. So, the doctors installed a new tube last night, although this one is the next size up. Emma's lungs have rebounded nicely, and while her ventilator settings aren't back to where they were a couple days ago, her x-rays look great. In addition, I felt that she was more active and attentive this morning than she had been recently.
Finally, as a result of all the blood work that has been done the last couple days it appears an almost certainty that Emma will require an additional blood transfusion. I was told that I could donate to Emma (Liz can't... something about having just given birth eliminates her from contention). However, I was informed that there is a substantial cost associated w/ direct giving to a newborn... so, maybe I'll just run over the Red Cross this week for a general donation...
and now... pictures of emma sans breathing and feeding tube (note... her lips look a bit funny because she has had a tube stuck in her mouth for two weeks... we have been assured that infants are very pliable)...
First... Time to get my mouth and lungs suctioned...
Just my feeding tube left...
Freedom!
Nose tubes for oxygen... Emma really didn't like these at all...
I always enjoy the pictures of Emma w/ something as a frame of reference... it reminds you how small Emma truly is (on that note, Liz and I could have sworn that one of Emma's new neighbors was at least 10 pounds... the baby looked huge... turned out the baby is just under six pounds... it seems our understanding of the "average sized" baby has become a bit warped over the past few weeks...)
posted by Chadwick at 1:56 PM
1 Comments:
Hello Liz and Chad,
Emma is just beautiful. I loved seeing her without all the tubes. She looked great resting on your chest Liz. Congratulations Mama and Papa on a 2 week + 2 day birthday. We will keep on praying for all of you. Much love, Jenny
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