Saturday, October 9, 2010
Day 11 cont.
Mason had a very good day. The doctor was able to wean his vent down some. Nitric is still being weaned. He did end up getting a blood transfusion!! The nurses were pretty proud of him though that he made it 36 hours without a transfusion. They said that is a big accomplishment because there were times when they were giving three per shift. Other than that it was a nice and well needed uneventful day.
Friday, October 8, 2010
PDA Results
PDA CLOSED!!!!! Woot Woot!!!! Echo also showed he has very good heart function. Celebrating with Famous Dave's for lunch, compliments of Grandma Bonzi.
Days 10 & 11
Wednesday and Thursday afternoons were pretty crazy around here. They have been unable to get Mason's oxygen sats up even on 100% oxygen. The doctor has had to manually ventilate him with an ambu bag because they thought he may have had a pneumothorax both days. Luckily he did not. They did xrays and found that his endotracheal tube (the tube that helps him breathe) wasn't in the correct position. This was probably due to how fidgety Mason is and when they reposition him even the slightest amount the tube could have moved the littlest bit and with him being so small that is huge. They also thought that he could have loosened some junk up in his lungs that was left over from the pulmonary hemorrhage and it got lodged in the tube after they had suctioned. Both times he recovered very quickly with the manual ventilation and they were able to put him back on the oscillator.
Mason has not had a blood product in 31 hours!!!! His labs have stayed stable. This is a huge accomplishment for the blood product king...as the nurses call him. We counted yesterday and in his ten days of life Mason was up to 34 blood product transfusions.
So far so good this hour of the day. Lately we have been taking things hour by hour. The doctor came around this morning and said things are looking better. The majority of his labs are normal. The doctor decided to start steroids for Mason's lungs yesterday because of the two incidences with oxygenation and due to the fact that he is so young and his lungs are so underdeveloped. Today we are again trying to wean the nitric. The echo is being done as I type right now to determine how his PDA looks. We did find out that Mason has a very small Level I bleed in his brain. The doctor and nurse practitioners are not worried about it though. They say it is very small and they will recheck it again next week.
Mason has not had a blood product in 31 hours!!!! His labs have stayed stable. This is a huge accomplishment for the blood product king...as the nurses call him. We counted yesterday and in his ten days of life Mason was up to 34 blood product transfusions.
So far so good this hour of the day. Lately we have been taking things hour by hour. The doctor came around this morning and said things are looking better. The majority of his labs are normal. The doctor decided to start steroids for Mason's lungs yesterday because of the two incidences with oxygenation and due to the fact that he is so young and his lungs are so underdeveloped. Today we are again trying to wean the nitric. The echo is being done as I type right now to determine how his PDA looks. We did find out that Mason has a very small Level I bleed in his brain. The doctor and nurse practitioners are not worried about it though. They say it is very small and they will recheck it again next week.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Days 7, 8, & 9
Monday and Tuesday were long days of oscillator setting changes. Mason was having a good day on Monday. They decided to take out the replogle tube that goes from his mouth to his stomach and put in a smaller one that doesn't need to be to suction. After they did the exchange, Mason just couldn't get his oxygen saturation back up. They had to increase his oscillator settings and restart him on nitric oxide that night. They took out the new tube and replaced the replogle which helps with gastric decompression. Tuesday was a better day because we were able to maintain the current settings and decrease his oxygen needs until around 5:00 pm. This seems to be Mason's time of the day where he gets naughty. He was dropping his oxygen sats again. The nurse decided to try and put him on his stomach. He seemed to really like that and his sats came up. When came to visit at around 1:00 am this morning he was again requiring more oxygen and they increased his settings drastically and gave him a medication to help him relax because the doctor thought he was fighting the oscillator. When I came back at 6:00 am his settings were way down. The nurse said he reacted really well to the medication and they were able to wean him way down to lower than he has ever been.
The echo on Monday also showed that his PDA wasn't improving so the doctor decided that it was time to start the medication to close it up. They started it at 1:00 am on Tuesday morning. This is given every 24 hours for three doses and then an echo is done to see if it worked. He can have three courses of this medication if needed. The doctor thinks that the PDA is what is causing some of his oxygenation problems because it is causing fluid to build up in his lungs.
The doctor just came around and said the plan for today was a PICC line, IVIg, more platelets, decreasing the nitric, and the usual labs and xray. A PICC line is a peripherally inserted central catheter. It is a form of intravenous access that can be used for a prolonged period of time. They will take out the access they have in his belly button since they are only used for 7-14 days because of the risk of infection. IVIg is a blood product that is given to boost the immune system. His white blood count has been low, but all of his cultures for infection have been negative. The doctor just wants to make sure Mason is covered. They also have stopped the antifungal medication and will stop the antibiotics after seven days.
Tomorrow will be a big day for Mason. He will have an ultrasound of his head to check for a bleed (first one was normal) and possibly an echo tomorrow or Friday to look at the PDA.
As you are saying prayers for Mason today, please say some for Grandpa Jack who is in the ICU in Rapid City with a bleeding clot in his brain.
The echo on Monday also showed that his PDA wasn't improving so the doctor decided that it was time to start the medication to close it up. They started it at 1:00 am on Tuesday morning. This is given every 24 hours for three doses and then an echo is done to see if it worked. He can have three courses of this medication if needed. The doctor thinks that the PDA is what is causing some of his oxygenation problems because it is causing fluid to build up in his lungs.
The doctor just came around and said the plan for today was a PICC line, IVIg, more platelets, decreasing the nitric, and the usual labs and xray. A PICC line is a peripherally inserted central catheter. It is a form of intravenous access that can be used for a prolonged period of time. They will take out the access they have in his belly button since they are only used for 7-14 days because of the risk of infection. IVIg is a blood product that is given to boost the immune system. His white blood count has been low, but all of his cultures for infection have been negative. The doctor just wants to make sure Mason is covered. They also have stopped the antifungal medication and will stop the antibiotics after seven days.
Tomorrow will be a big day for Mason. He will have an ultrasound of his head to check for a bleed (first one was normal) and possibly an echo tomorrow or Friday to look at the PDA.
As you are saying prayers for Mason today, please say some for Grandpa Jack who is in the ICU in Rapid City with a bleeding clot in his brain.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Day 6
Mason had another good day today. His oscillator settings continued to be turned down. We got to spend some time tonight with him with his eye mask off. He had his eyes wide open almost the entire time. They are going to do another echo tomorrow to look at his heart and see how his PDA is looking. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers.
Mason gets bravery beads for every treatment he goes through and here is video that shows his beads so far.
Mason was wide awake tonight when the nurse was doing her nightly checks.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Day 5
Mason had a good day today. We were able to wean off the nitric oxide completely. Throughout the day the settings on the oscillator were turned down as well. At around 6:00 pm Mason had a blood gas drawn that showed a change and the nurse practitioner had to turn up one of the settings. The nurse laughed that Mason just had to show us that he was the boss and he was the one making decisions.
He received additional transfusions of fresh frozen plasma, platelets, and blood today. Part of the reason we have to continue to give him the blood transfusions is due to all the blood taken for labs. Mason only has approximately 50ml of blood total and we are constantly taking blood for labs. This decreases his total blood volume by around 10% throughout the day.
He received additional transfusions of fresh frozen plasma, platelets, and blood today. Part of the reason we have to continue to give him the blood transfusions is due to all the blood taken for labs. Mason only has approximately 50ml of blood total and we are constantly taking blood for labs. This decreases his total blood volume by around 10% throughout the day.
A tour of Mason's area
Mason on Day 5
Friday, October 1, 2010
Days 2-4
Upon arrival to the NICU Mason was placed on a breathing machine called an oscillator. This machine gives him around 600 breaths a minute and when you look at Mason it looks as though he is vibrating. They are constantly monitoring and trying to improve the settings. So far in Mason's short life he has had eight blood transfusions, five platelet transfusions, and three fresh frozen plasma transfusions.
Mason gave us quite the scare on his second night of life. Around 9:00 pm Mason had a pulmonary hemorrhage, which means his lungs began to bleed and he required immediate medical attention. The neonatologist and nurses acted quickly and got the bleed stopped. The doctor said Mason responded very well to the treatment and that was a good sign that things would be ok. Due to the bleed in his lungs, Mason was put on a second machine that pumps nitric oxide into his lungs along with the oxygen. The nitric oxide helps to open up the lungs so that they can absorb more oxygen. Since this scare, Mason has been kept stable and is now being weaned off of his nitric oxide.
Mason also has a patent ductus arteriosus which means the blood vessel in the heart that normally closes at birth is still open. They have done two echocardiograms to look at his heart and are monitoring it closely. There is a medication that is given to close the vessel, but his second echo looked better so they are just going to watch it for a little bit. Also, he has pulmonary hypertension which is high blood pressure in the lungs. The doctor thinks that this could be part of the cause of the hemorrhage. He also said that the second echo showed that the hypertension was improving.
Some good news that we received today was that Mason's head ultrasound was normal and there was no bleed. They worry alot about this in premature babies because 90% of them happen within the first three days. They will repeat the scan on day 10 and day 30.
Today the doctor was cracking jokes while he examined Mason so that made us feel good about his condition. We just have to wait and see if we can continue to wean him off the nitric oxide. We also found out today that they are going to try to keep Mason at his birth weight for the time being. Once he starts eating and gaining weight we will update that stat daily.
Here is a video of Mason opening his eyes for a few seconds.
Mason gave us quite the scare on his second night of life. Around 9:00 pm Mason had a pulmonary hemorrhage, which means his lungs began to bleed and he required immediate medical attention. The neonatologist and nurses acted quickly and got the bleed stopped. The doctor said Mason responded very well to the treatment and that was a good sign that things would be ok. Due to the bleed in his lungs, Mason was put on a second machine that pumps nitric oxide into his lungs along with the oxygen. The nitric oxide helps to open up the lungs so that they can absorb more oxygen. Since this scare, Mason has been kept stable and is now being weaned off of his nitric oxide.
Mason also has a patent ductus arteriosus which means the blood vessel in the heart that normally closes at birth is still open. They have done two echocardiograms to look at his heart and are monitoring it closely. There is a medication that is given to close the vessel, but his second echo looked better so they are just going to watch it for a little bit. Also, he has pulmonary hypertension which is high blood pressure in the lungs. The doctor thinks that this could be part of the cause of the hemorrhage. He also said that the second echo showed that the hypertension was improving.
Some good news that we received today was that Mason's head ultrasound was normal and there was no bleed. They worry alot about this in premature babies because 90% of them happen within the first three days. They will repeat the scan on day 10 and day 30.
Today the doctor was cracking jokes while he examined Mason so that made us feel good about his condition. We just have to wait and see if we can continue to wean him off the nitric oxide. We also found out today that they are going to try to keep Mason at his birth weight for the time being. Once he starts eating and gaining weight we will update that stat daily.
Here is a video of Mason opening his eyes for a few seconds.
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