Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday, January 23, 2011





We can hold Caleb again! His lines in his heart were removed today, as well as his arterial line and his chest tube. He was even moved from the PCTU to the floor. Today was a good day.

Today, most of Caleb's stuff went well. His diuretics switch is going ok and his blood pressure is staying under control with the oral medications. His breathing is still comfortable and his oxygen saturations are good.

Caleb did throw up several more times throughout the night. They stopped feeding him for a time until they could figure out what was going on. Phil, the nurses and the nurse practioner spent the day playing detective to pin down the cause of the problem. The first thing they tried was feeding Caleb like we feed him at home. Here, they were feeding him about four times faster than we do at home and they didn't flush the feeding set like we do. Caleb still threw up with the modified feeding method. Next, they tried giving him some Ativan to see if he was having withdrawls from that. Caleb still threw up. Next, they tried putting his morphine dose back where it was yesterday and the throwing up stopped. Imagine Caleb having a hard time weaning off morphine! This was not something that surprised me at all.

Now, Caleb is back taking 80 mL of normal breastmilk and has eaten three times with no problems. Tomorrow, the clinical pharmacist will be back and she is the one that got him weaned off last time, so we are not worried. It may just take some time. We made a lot of progress today and it is not surprising that Caleb might need a day to catch back up.

I am guessing that tomorrow we will start getting an idea of what the game plan will be for getting us home. We still have to get his feedings back up to 24 calorie breastmilk (with a 22 calorie step in between) and wean off the morphine. We also have to get his electrolytes to stay stable. They don't have to be right, they just have to be stable so we can keep them right with oral medications. We also have to avoid infections.

Caleb must be feeling better because he was smiling today! He is getting back to his happy, flirty self. It is nice, because all of the nurses that took care of him last time are stopping in to see him and he smiles at them instead of screaming bloody murder.

4 comments:

  1. Love love love all the great things going on.

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  2. Yay! Go Caleb, the little super star! xxxx
    Sara, Jochen & Tatiana

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  3. It is so great to see him smiling again! Keep up the great work Caleb!

    Love,
    Aunt Sarah

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  4. LOVE THE SMILE!!!! and all the good things happening!!!

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