Jacob is one month old today! I was hoping for it to be more of a celebration, but today we found out the upper right lung is collapsed. This does not appear to be related to his pneumonia, but is just a symptom of his developing chronic lung disease, which many early preemies face. I knew something like this had to be coming since he was increasing oxygen requirements - in the 60% range and even 70s. The treatment so far is to keep the right side elevated and they did a procedure that looks like a chest/back massage on the lungs with a little vibrating tool that looks like a mini version of something you would buy at Brookstone or the Sharper Image. He didn't like it as much as I like a massage though. He is also down on his rate on the respirator (amounts of breaths per minute the machine takes vs his own breaths) - this is good meaning he is doing more of his own breathing.
So we continue to take it day by day, and hope he starts to repair the damaged lung and decrease his oxygen requirements so he can wean off the ventilator (which can cause more damage to his tiny lungs).
Good news continues regarding feedings - he is now up to 20 ml feedings (there are 30 mls in an ounce). I remember when he was on 1 ml, and then when we thought 10 was a big deal. He is tolerating his feedings well and consistently.
Tomorrow starts a new week in the NICU, let's hope it's better than last week, which started on Monday with news of pneumonia and ends today with news of a collapsed lung.
No comments:
Post a Comment