Friday, January 16

Caden is one week old today! It's hard to believe because the past week has been such a blur for us. We visited him briefly in the morning and he was doing well. However, the new IV they put in his arm yesterday apparently was bad and they had to remove it. So now he has one in his foot. But otherwise, he was doing okay. In fact, his bilirubin had come down enough they took him off the phototherapy treatment. So that's nice, no more bright light and sunglasses. And, last night they gave him the shot for RSV and he will need to get the shot once/month until April.

This afternoon, Greg went on a bike ride and I rested for awhile before heading back to the hospital. I am trying to minimize my handling of Caden. But I am washing my hands thoroughly and making sure not to touch his hands or his face or breathe on him. So I am not holding him for now. Greg is still holding him though. And, we have tried to be there for his small feedings of milk during the day so we can give them to him. It makes us feel a little more involved in his care.

This evening when we were at the hospital, the neonatal nurse practitioner said Caden was breathing faster than they were comfortable with, and since they knew he had some fluid in his lungs, they were going to give him a dose of Lasix to see how he responded. If the Lasix doesn't help as much as they would like, the next step is to put him on a ventilator in order to help him breathe a little easier. They just don't want to overtax his little body unnecessarily, especially since he needs to be strong enough for surgery. So, we'll see what happens with that.

She also said that although we shouldn't quote her on this, because she really doesn't know, she wouldn't be surprised if Caden has surgery over the weekend. She said Dr. Reddy is known to do surgeries six or seven days a week and he often likes to do them on Sundays. So, we don't really know for sure, but if a bed were to open up in CVICU, there would be the chance that Caden would have surgery this weekend. It certainly would be nice to get it done with sooner as opposed to later. But we won't know until very soon before.

Greg went back to the hospital later tonight after the shift change and said that it appeared the Lasix was working. Caden was having more wet diapers and it appeared his respirations were down a little. The neonatal team has ordered another x-ray for tomorrow in order to check the lungs again and see if the Lasix are doing their job. It is unclear what information the x-ray is actually going to provide since we are already seeing evidence of the lasix working, but this seems to be par for the medical process. Check and double check. I guess it is good they are being diligent.

Our little miracle is definitely surprising the medical staff here at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Based on all the prenatal information they had, they all thought he would be much sicker than he is. We're so happy he is a week old and doing as well as he is. But it doesn't mean we still have a long road ahead. We will keep you posted on what happens.