Day 9 NICU

Baby Foot

It's kind of misleading to use Quentin's thumb for measurement because he dwarfs lots of people. I have tiny hands though and her entire arm, shoulder to fingertips, is the length of my hand, palm heel to middle finger tip.

1 day old

9 days old

I think her face is already filling out.

Clarity continued to improve on Friday. She was doing an amazing job of tolerating all of the bother of cares (nose and mouth suction, diaper change, sensor checks and movement) with only a bit of raised blood pressure and heart rate, both of which quickly recovered to normal rates. 

At the end of the day, she was also weaned down to 33% oxygen. For perspective, her high was about 45% (could have been closer to 50% at the very beginning) and room air is 21%. Not bad for a girl with only one lung's worth of volume.

By early evening, her dopamine had been weaned down to 7 (after a high of 12) and her epinephrine was at .03 (after a high of .09). These were helping her maintain her blood pressure but she's been tolerating the weans very well. The night nurse was going to monitor her closely but potentially wean the dopamine down to 5 by her end of shift this morning.

Her calcium chloride drip was cut in half yesterday. Apparently, a person's body uses up the free calcium in their blood more readily when under stress, so they were supplementing when her blood tests came back deficient. Her levels have now been holding steady so they'll be watching her blood tests over the next 48 hours to see if they are still within the appropriate range with less supplementation.

At the very end of the day, she got another CRP, which was very close to her previous number. Since it's not a direct indicator of infection but of inflammation, the new result that has stayed fairly constant, combined with the clean bacterial cultures, suggests that the elevated number is a result of her condition and current state. They were planning on stopping the prophylactic antibiotics last night.

We know there can easily be setbacks but are awfully proud of our little girl for keeping up the positive trend. We're heading in the right direction. They're still talking surgery for sometime next week. We'll see, based on how she keeps doing, if they end up deciding early or late in the week. The idea of surgery is getting scarier as it gets closer, so I'm willing to let them take their time. :)

A big girl with important work at Grandma and Grandpa's
In true toddler fashion, she was on a mission, clear only in her own mind.