March 23, 2009

Demetri gained 16 grams for a total of 2 lbs 11 oz. His face is starting to fill out and he feels like a bigger baby when you hold him. His nurse did his weekly measurements last night and his length is up to 15.5 inches and head circumference is 10.6 inches. His blood gas from the early morning was no different than with out the oxygen, so his nasal cannula flow was turned down to 0.3L. His other morning labs were normal. The electrolyes and CBC looked good, and there was not a shift indicating an infection.

The rest of the day is not as easy day to blog about. It was very emotional and tumultuous. We found out he had had an apneic event this morning before we got there. This was concerning because he had not had one in a while and the nurses had to increase his oxygen to help him recover (that had never happen). He took his full bottle feeding for mommy this morning in record time (less than 15 minutes). Then he had another apneic event mid morning that required a lot of stimulation to get him to take a breath. He then had 2 more events while I was holding him during his NG feeding at 2pm that required a lot of stimulation to recover.

His nurse practitioner came to the bedside to evaluate him and the events. She decided to do a septic workup (draw labs including a blood culture, urine culture, CRP, and blood gas) and chest x-ray. The preliminary afternoon labs look good. The CRP was normal as was his chest x-ray. It will take a few days to get the results from the blood and urine cultures. After all of the action of getting the labs, he still took his 5pm bottle pretty well for daddy, leaving only 4ml to put in the NG tube. But he had another apneic event when we put him back in the isolette, so they increased his oxygen flow to 1L.

After great debate, we decided to leave him in the capable hands of his night nurse and go home to eat dinner with Eleni. We called to check on him after his 8pm feeding and he had not had any additional events and was tolerating his feeding well. We are hoping and praying that he has no more events tonight and that we find him having a better day tomorrow.