Today Oliver's doctor - Dr. Segar spoke to us about Oliver's lungs. Oliver is in a stand still with his lungs and we just have to wait until he tells us he is ready to be weaned. They gave him more surfactant today through the ET tube and then bagged him through an ambu-bag to have high pressure in his lungs to try and "fluff" up that right side of his lung. It was the scarriest thing I have ever seen in my life. They put it down, turn him on his side for 30 seconds while bagging him with 100% oxygen then turn to the other side and repeat. I don't think I will be in the room if they have to do that again. No mother and father should have to watch their son turn blue and struggle to breathe even though they were there breathing for him, he was trying to cough the fluid up and out of there. After they suctioned the tube out it did help him and his saturations came up. Dr. Segar explained his lung condition in that they are thinking it is either the smooth muscles around his vessels of his lungs that are enlarged from working too hard or the vessels in his lungs are constricted too much. If is the vessels themselves they have started him on viagra. Yes I said viagra - before it became popular for the use that we all know it for it was used in babies to help dilate (open up) the blood vessels. He will get that every 6 hours but it can cause his blood pressure to drop so they watch it closely. He tolerated the first dose well at noon today. If it is a muscle problem, it just takes time so the muscles shrink back to normal size with no use. It's like other muscles - if you don't use them they shrink and that is what they are hoping happens to Oliver's lung muscles. After the surfactant was given today, they repeated his chest x-ray and we had great news - his upper right lobe expanded!!! It's not fully expanded but it is open and there is air through the whole thing just not the amount that is normal. He is also having an ECHO done right now because his heart looked hazy today in this morning's chest x-ray but at noon the heart was more defined which is a good thing.
They also increased his feedings to 10ml of breastmilk every 6 hours and he seems to tolerate them well with minimal residuals. His labs looked good this AM. He's still pretty sedated today and they are starting him on fentanyl as a short acting pain/sedation agent to use as well as the morphine and ativan. They want him to rest as much as he can so that he doesn't have to work so hard. They turned his nitrous oxide that he gets through the ventilator up to 20 today in the hopes that it dilates the capillary branches in the lungs and makes it easier for him to breathe. They still have no answer about what happened to cause this but the nurses tell me he's not the sickest baby in the NICU anymore and that he's made good progress but just have to wait for him to tell us that he is ready to wean more. Shawn went home after lunch and he will go back to work tomorrow and then come back tomorrow night and stay the weekend. Shirley is here with me now.
Oliver got to meet his Great grandma Billie and Aunt Marti yesterday when they came to visit. He still has his eye shields and ear muffs on but I like to think he can still hear us when when whisper to him. Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers.
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