Culture Shock

I have to say that going from an ICU unit to the unit we are currently on is causing a bit of culture shock. For the majority of Caden's time in CVICU, he had a one-to-one patient-nurse ratio. There were times when he was paired with another baby to be cared for by one nurse. But most of the time he had his own nurse. Now we are on 3W and Caden's nurse has three patients and she's not in the room with him at all times. The great thing about the room is that we share it with only one other patient and it is much quieter than the CVICU. We get room to spread out a bit and make ourselves at home. It is also a little easier with Kyler around because there is room for him to play and a large couch he can play on with his toys.

But the nurse comes in only periodically to check on things. Overall this is okay, but it's just a strange feeling. Greg and I are taking turns giving Caden his medications and starting his feedings. Basically we're just learning how to use the g-tube. The nurse gave us a video to watch but we haven't had a chance to do that yet.

Caden remained stable through the night. His roommate and her father said they never would have known there was a baby in the room because he was so quiet. And, it's not because he doesn't have a voice anymore. He definitely has his voice back and is wiling to use it to make himself heard. It's such a great sound! The nurse gave him a bath this morning and he wasn't all too impressed with it and made sure we knew it. He got bathed from head to toe, which is something he isn't used to in the ICU units. He had too many other things going on to have a full bath.

When the doctors rounded this morning, they decided to increase his blood pressure med in order to bring his pressures down even more. Caden had an EKG to make sure everything looked good there, which it did. And, they had an x-ray taken to see how his lungs looked. On further examination by a radiologist, it appears there is a pneumothorax in the right side of his chest. That just means there is some air or gas collected in the area outside the lung in the chest cavity. This can cause partial collapse of the lung which obviously is a problem for Caden. So, they are treating this right now by increasing his oxygen because can help resolve the problem. They will take another x-ray later today to see if there is any difference and will discuss how to proceed based on those results.

They are working on getting his medications scheduled so they are given at the same times of day so we aren't getting up every couple hours at night to give them. I guess the other thing they did was increase the volume of his feedings. He had been consistently waking up an hour or so before each feeding acting hungry. He would root around and be quite fussy. So, thankfully they moved up his feeds by 5 mls/feed. If he is still acting hungry between feedings and he seems to be tolerating them well, they will increase them again. He actually lost a little bit of weight between yesterday and today (very little, but still not a gain). So, they definitely want to make sure he is getting enough to eat. Otherwise, Caden is doing well. We are so grateful for his status right now and hope the pheumothorax resolves quickly so we can continue our quest to get home.

Caden smiling after his bath