Between going to the hospital, pumping every two hours, trying to give Clara some attention, resting...it's been so hard to update the blog. So I'll have to back up and fill missing details later and just start with today.
Slight backstory, Everett was being tested, evaluated, observed, etc. non-stop for the first 24 hours. Doctors and nurses worked frantically trying to figure out what was wrong and I'll eventually list the 2,000 predictions another time. Saturday at 3:30 am I woke in a panic and let Andre know we needed to go see him. They were in the midst of taping his little arms down, they needed to get a PICC line in his tiny arm since he was having a lot of trouble. He was fighting the oxygen machine, trying to do his own breathing and it was hurting him. We waited in the hall until 6am when the doctor came out to let us know they couldn't get the line in and it would be a while until they knew more. We went back to "sleep" and Andre went up at 9 when the doctors do their rounds to hear what was going on. They were all at Everett's bedside, not for rounds, but because he needed their immediate attention. Andre came back down to the room as I was packing to be discharged from the hospital and let me know how bad it was. That was our lowest, I hope we never get back to that. They decided to chemically paralyze him so his body could rest.
Since Saturday his body has been resting in his coma while the machines and medicine do all the work. He has made slow, gradual progress over the last few days. They "decided" that he must have inhaled amniotic fluid on his first breath and it got into his lungs and it became infected which led to pneumonia, which also caused the pulmonary hypertension. They will never be able to tell us if it is pneumonia, but they seem pretty consistent with that prediction. He's been on an antibiotic since he was taken to the NICU and it'll last 10 days, so let's hope that's long enough to get him well.
So, today, we went in for the doctors rounds and the same doctor that spoke with us on Saturday early am was the one on today. He was very pleased with the progress that Everett has made which was comforting. He had his oxygen at 100% doing all the work starting Saturday and this morning it was down to 38%. They've been weaning him slowly over the last couple days. They wanted to take him off the epinephrine which helps his blood pressure. He wasn't ready for the yesterday but throughout the night last night there was great success. They knew he wasn't ready because his blood pressure dropped, so they put it back up. As of 9:30 am this am, it's been completely weaned and his blood pressure is fine. There are no signs of the pulmonary hypertension at this time which shows that his lungs are improving. This mornings x-rays show the cloud still in his lungs but it's improved. He has been on 20% nitric oxide which I'm guessing is just part of the "blood gasses" he needs in his lungs that they check which tells them how he is doing and what they can and cannot take away. They are going to wean that now. (It's noon) We'll soon know if he's able to handle that. He is so strong and so sweet, he had his little hat on this morning and socks. Pictures soon. They're goal is to wake him in the next 24 hours to see how he handles taking over for himself. It's very exciting and very nerve racking. I just called and his oxygen is down to 31% and they're just now dropping his nitric oxide so I'll call back in a few hours to see if/how he handled that. Stay tuned...
yay for Everett's progress!!!!
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