Three weeks and two days - Update

Katelyn is doing well. In fact she has done remarkably well with her feedings. It is uncommon for a baby as premature as she is to get to full feedings so quickly and without any setbacks. She is growing and is over two pounds now. She is till fighting the last bit of her pneumonia. She has a bunch of extra secretions and they have done a couple of deep tracheal suctions to help clear her out. They have also switched to a new ventilator (a Jet) that is better at clearing everything out. She has an occasional swing on her oxygen needs, but for the most part, her settings are really low.

The new development with Katelyn is that we have discovered that she has an hemangioma on her lip. At first it looked like she had a bruised lip but it has been getting darker. As I understand it, they are caused by a large collection of blood vessels in concentrated area. They are fairly common, especially in premature babies. The dermatologist looked at Katelyn. Just like everything seems to be, there are no definitive answers. It could go away or it could get bigger. They typically grow in the first year and then shrink. The standard numbers are at 3 years 30% are gone. At 5 years 50% are gone and at 7 years 70% are gone. Katelyn's is a little concerning because it seems to be growing now and it is on her lip where she could bite it when she eats. It sounds like they may give her some steroids to help keep it from growing too big. She is already taking the steriods for other stuff, so it may just be that she needs a larger dose.



Brandon is also doing well. He had a bad spell where is oxygen needs went up. For a while he was hovering around 70%. They had been weaning him from the nitric oxide. They couldn’t see any more pulmonary hypertension. However, because his lungs have been a little hazy and because he has so many tubes and things going on around his abdomen, the echos haven't been as easy to see everything as they would like, so they have been cautious. He came off the nitric oxide completely and his latest echocardiogram looked good. It is common for oxygen needs to increase after discontinuing nitric oxide. However, Brandon was still higher than we wanted him to be when he was at 70%. He dropped some and hung out at around 50% yesterday. They gave him another drug to help and he dropped last night into the low 40’s.
The good news is that he is looking really good. They are also weaning him a bit from his pain medication so is more alert more often. He looks so much better.