Penny's Moved and Isaak's Improved

Things are starting to look up for Isaak.  His respiratory status is improving hourly.  They keep weaning him slowly from the ventilator and hope to extubate him soon.  He'll go back to bubble CPAP.  His pain medication is also being weaned and that will likely help with extubation as many pain meds are respiratory depressants.  They put a new PICC line in so that he can get more dextrose to plump him up.  (Currently, he weighs in at 940g.)  And he's making lots of wet diapers - another good sign.  He's still receiving antibiotics and IV nutrition.

Neil visited Penelope on Sunday and her big news is that she's moved to an "intermediate" nursery since she is doing so well.  Her apnea and bradycardia episodes are minimal and largely all self-resolved.  She is still on Vapotherm and her rate was lowered from 3 liters to 2.5 liters.  Her weight is up to 780g (which is what Isaak weighed at birth).

That's all for now, but hopefully there will be more good news to come.  We still have a long road ahead of us.  There's a lot of uncertainty especially where Isaak is concerned.  So please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Extubation is successful so far!

Good news. They successfully extubated the little fella around 5:30 with minimal fuss. The challenge right now is to fit a bi-pap mask! Little people don't often wear them and so they have to adapt larger masks. He seems to be breathing pretty well even between fittings which is great news.

With luck, he'll only need the bipap for a couple of days to fully stabilize. Another big plus with the extubation is they can now provide more serious pain relief. Since morphine and other opiates affect breathing function, they needed to wake him up fully before they could safely medicate. Hopefully it helps him sleep. I know if my stomach had just been wrapped around my esophagus, I'd want some morphine!

They'll be closing the ICU for shift change in a little while. We'll try to grab some dinner and be back with an update after 8pm.

Ollie is in PICU

Little guy is now in his room in the Pediatric ICU. He is doing well and we are waiting on him to wake up so they can try to extubate. His numbers are good and he is sleeping peacefully.