March 26, 2010

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2010 12:41 PM, CDT

Apparently Liam heard the doctors talking about giving him a new medication because when I came in this morning, the nurse said there was improvement on his x-rays from yesterday and they might be moving him to a conventional vent sometime today. The doctors reviewed cases this morning (apparently they don't make bedside rounds on Friday - they staff all the cases together in the workroom) and after his 11:30 AM blood gas, decided to move forward with putting him back on the conventional vent. I am in the waiting room right now waiting on them to finish the changeover!

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2010 11:15 PM, CDT

Liam transitioned very well to the conventional ventilator today and his oxygen is down on 23%! He did decide he no longer needed his UAC line today and it fell out. That's a line in his umbilical cord/belly button that allows blood to be drawn without pricking him - a good thing b/c they do blood gases several times per day. Anyway, they said it's normal for them to fall out after this long but they would try to put another one in (and if it didn't go in, he'd just be without one)...thankfully the doctor was able to get a new one in so he doesn't have to be pricked all the time, for now. They FINALLY got the trans-pyloric tube placed just right late tonight and started him on his first milk at just before 10:00 PM! Again, today, several different nurses tried before the doctor finally got it in correctly when he put the new UAC in...if he didn't get it in, they would've had to do some testing to look at Liam's anatomy because it's not normal for those tubes to be so hard to get into place - every nurse said they're usually VERY easy to get in and they aren't sure why it was so hard to get in.