Two Weeks Old

Today, Caelin is two weeks old. Mommy and Daddy cannot believe how fast the last two weeks have gone by. Although a couple of Caelin's big days seemed to drag on, overall the time has flown. This Monday Daddy has to go back to work because Spring Break will be over and Mommy and Caelin are going to miss him a lot but luckily he works close so he won't get back to the hospital too late.

Cael had a pretty good day today. The doctors decided to increase his dose of Fentanyl because yesterday he was awake a lot, got agitated relatively easily, and was a little more difficult to console. So today he was able to sleep more frequently and for longer periods of time.

Caelin received an echocardiogram this morning to look at the flow of his shunt. The pediatric cardiologist reviewed it and said the flow still looks good. She also listened to it and said that it sounds very good. She said after the surgeon was finished with surgery, she would speak with him and the other doctors to decide if and when Caelin would go to the cath lab to look at the shunt further. Later this afternoon she returned and informed us they scheduled him to go to the cath lab on Monday at 9:00 AM to look at the shunt with a camera to see if he needs a stint. They will send wires through his main artery in his leg (groin area) to get pictures of the shunt. At this point, they will decide whether or not to insert a stint to reinforce his shunt.

He has been receiving respiratory therapy all day for his partially collapsed lung. Both lungs have shown improvement but his right upper lobe is still somewhat collapsed. So they are being a bit more aggressive with the therapy now, trying to expand it and decrease the mucus build up. They have also decided to work on extubating him. The doctors were waiting to come to an agreement about the stint before deciding when they would begin weaning him off the respirator. They are hoping to have him off the respirator by Sunday but it all depends on Caelin and if his little body is ready to take full control of his breathing again. They decided to work on extubating him before he goes to the cath lab to see how well he does; hopefully he does well and then when he gets reintubated at the cath lab, he will be able to be immediately extubated after the procedure. Whereas if he remained intubated the whole time, from now until after the procedure, he would need to be intubated for a few more days after the cath lab to regain strength and recover.

During rounds in the morning we intend on asking the doctors about feeds. Since he has only eaten two out of fourteen days, we are a little concerned with how his stomach will react to feeding if they continue to stray away from feeding. Again, he receives all his nutrients through his IVs but nothing is actually going to his stomach. They avoid feeding babies with the heart condition for a little while because when they eat, it changes their blood flow. Up to this point, they wanted his blood flow to be more restricted to the vital areas. But like we said, we are worried that he may struggle with transitioning to feeds if they continue to wait and that the natural bacteria in the stomach may end up having a negative effect on his little body.