July 17, 2007

Tuesday.

Happy Birthday Michael! Today, our baby boy is 4 weeks old, and he has had a big, big day.

First, the surgeon came around and changed his trach tube. He came through it wonderfully, the nurses said. The wounds are healing nicely, and there was no desat during the trach change (which was a possibility).
Second, the paralytic drug was stopped today. After moving around for a few hours, Michael opened his eyes around 4:30. His eyes were covered with a cloth, but as soon as we saw they were open, we removed it, and Mommy was the first thing Michael saw. Before too long, we had to leave for the nursing shift change, but we came back to find a sleeping baby. When he woke up and saw Daddy staring at him, he got all excited and squirmed around on his bed. At that point, it was a battle -- Michael's curiosity versus the sedative that was still being dripped into him continuously. It was pretty much an even fight until we left him for the night.

The doctor on rotation tells us that he expects the ventilator to be turned off very soon and Michael to be back up to normal feeds (through his G tube) by the end of the week. This is all great news, and much faster than we had dared to hope.

Michael had a "low sat" day for him -- his O2 levels were in the high 80s and low 90s for much of the afternoon. After some adjusting of his trach tube, his sats finally came back up. In the meantime, though, his blood gasses were "really good" (per the technicians) and the ventilator was turned down again. It is hard to tell how much Michael is even using the ventilator at this point, though, because he is breathing much faster than the ventilator settings. We can see sometimes that it is pushing him to deeper breaths and supporting his breathing attempts, but it seems to Mom and Dad that Michael is doing much of it on his own.

On the lighter side -- Michael has had two record setting diapers as a result of his diuretics. A "heavy" diaper is about 50 grams or so, and Michael had one of 195 grams and one of 196 grams. Believe it or not, the diaper did not explode. Pampers makes one tough newborn diaper! The nurse is suggesting we write to the company to see if it is fodder for the next great diaper commercial. "If Pampers can handle MY kid's diaper, it can handle YOUR kid's diaper...."

Ok, ok, enough silly diaper stories.