Making Progress

Nicholas says "Happy New Year!"
The NICU version of a Lazy Boy. Nick with his feet propped up.

Nick started the new year with a bang. A bang of pee! His 24 hour output was 17 times a normal urine output. He is still having a strong output and they want to see this for a few more days. Dr. Marsh said a baby his size should pee about one teaspoonful per hour. This afternoon while Mom and I were there, he was peeing about 15ml an hour. He is a lot less swollen but still has some more to lose. Grandma T says he doesn't look like a little Sumo Wrestler anymore. They weaned the Lasix a tiny bit too. I mentioned that he swelled up again when they weaned the Lasix last time and Dr. Marsh said he doesn't think that will happen this time because his blood pressure is high enough.

They stopped the Epinephrine and weaned him a little on the Dopamine because his blood pressure has been up where they want it. It was actually a little bit high today because of the steroid they have him on for his lungs.

His oscillator settings are about the same and his blood gases have been good but not good enough to lower the settings.

Dr. Marsh said that he wants to wean a little more of the Dopamine before they try to feed him. They are going to look at the x-ray of his stomach to see if the gas has moved. He said it is hard to get a good x-ray with all the excess fluid so the next one should be clearer. He said they will either try giving him a clear fluid or do a dye contrast test before they try him with milk.

They took a blood culture and a culture of the fluid from his head to check for infection. He is on an antibiotic again just as a precaution but they switched to one that doesn't effect the kidneys.

As you can see from Mark's previous post he was very upset when Nick took a turn for the worst on Tuesday. Mark compared Nick's condition to a football game by saying we are in the 4th quarter and down by ten. Nick has really improved the past day and a half. We are still in the 4th quarter but now we have the ball and are about to score a touchdown. The NICU journey has been hard on everyone and we were told it is a roller coaster ride. We hit a really low dip on the roller coaster but are moving up hill now.