Having such premature babies in the hospital is a long and slow process however, at times, things seem to move fast. A lot has happened since I last updated.
I will start with Katelyn. She has been growing and learning to eat. She had her second eye exam and her eyes hadn’t changed. This is good enough news that the doctor didn’t plan on coming back for a couple of weeks. We did get a call a couple of days ago from the doctor who told us that Katelyn wasn’t looking good and her oxygen needs were swinging quite a bit. As we know, this can be a sign of infection so they ran some tests. It turned out that her hematacrit was very low (26). They ended up giving her some blood and now she is looking good and doing great. The boys even got a chance to hold her this weekend. They were very gentle and very, very excited. They are going to be great big brothers. Derek always announced himself on his visits by saying “Hi Katlyn. It’s me, Derek.” I have put some links to video of the boys holding Katelyn. Again they are big files so I suggest that you only click on the links if you have a good Internet connection.
http://www.bla-dam.com/videos/100_0843.MOV 4.7M - Brandon immediately after extubation
http://www.bla-dam.com/videos/100_0828.MOV 11.8M - Blake holding Katelyn
http://www.bla-dam.com/videos/100_0812.MOV 16.2M - Derek holding Katelyn
Katelyn’s care has been turned over to a pediatrician and she is no longer seen by a neonatologist. She is doing great on her feedings. Amy is going to begin to nurse her three times a day, starting today. While this is great progress for Katelyn she isn’t a fast eater because she needs a lot of breaks so these feedings take a lot of time. This means even more trips to the hospital until Katelyn comes home. The other news, that produces a mix of excitement and fear, is that they are already talking about the possibility of sending Katelyn home in a couple of weeks.
Her last weight was 3 lbs 11 oz.
I will start with Katelyn. She has been growing and learning to eat. She had her second eye exam and her eyes hadn’t changed. This is good enough news that the doctor didn’t plan on coming back for a couple of weeks. We did get a call a couple of days ago from the doctor who told us that Katelyn wasn’t looking good and her oxygen needs were swinging quite a bit. As we know, this can be a sign of infection so they ran some tests. It turned out that her hematacrit was very low (26). They ended up giving her some blood and now she is looking good and doing great. The boys even got a chance to hold her this weekend. They were very gentle and very, very excited. They are going to be great big brothers. Derek always announced himself on his visits by saying “Hi Katlyn. It’s me, Derek.” I have put some links to video of the boys holding Katelyn. Again they are big files so I suggest that you only click on the links if you have a good Internet connection.
http://www.bla-dam.com/videos/100_0843.MOV 4.7M - Brandon immediately after extubation
http://www.bla-dam.com/videos/100_0828.MOV 11.8M - Blake holding Katelyn
http://www.bla-dam.com/videos/100_0812.MOV 16.2M - Derek holding Katelyn
Katelyn’s care has been turned over to a pediatrician and she is no longer seen by a neonatologist. She is doing great on her feedings. Amy is going to begin to nurse her three times a day, starting today. While this is great progress for Katelyn she isn’t a fast eater because she needs a lot of breaks so these feedings take a lot of time. This means even more trips to the hospital until Katelyn comes home. The other news, that produces a mix of excitement and fear, is that they are already talking about the possibility of sending Katelyn home in a couple of weeks.
Her last weight was 3 lbs 11 oz.
Last time I posted we learned that Brandon had an infection. Because of the devastating effects that Brandon’s past infections had on his progress, this news seemed very disheartening. The good news is that they caught it very early and he responded very well to the antibiotics. His oxygen needs have been good and he was looking really good. He has been growing a ton. His weight today was 2lbs. 15 oz.. It has been surprising to us how fast he can put on weight. We even got to hold him a couple more times this week. Over the weekend, we talked to one of the doctors and asked about how soon we could possibly extubate Brandon again. He hesitated to give us a prediction, especially because a new doctor would come on this week. However, we forced him into telling us it might be a week or two.
Brandon’s ventilator has been alarming a lot. He still has a leak. It is much better than the previous leak but he certainly hasn’t been getting all of the benefits of the ventilator. This means that it is hard to tell the amount of oxygen he really needs because his current setting is higher than what he is actually getting. This morning at rounds was one of those times when things seemed to move fast. The doctor looked at the leak and saw how stable he had been. They discussed it for a moment and decided they might as well extubate him today. They asked when his next feeding would be. It scheduled for about an hour. They didn’t want to feed him close to the time of extubation so they decided that if they put off his feeding by 15-30 minutes that they could extubate him right then. In about a half hour he was off the ventilator and seeming to do great. He really seemed happy and it seemed to us like it was much less effort for him to breath. We will continue to check and see how he is doing but we are very optimistic this time.
He is much bigger than he was last time he was extubated. In fact a couple of days ago his tube was re-taped to his mouth. We noticed that this new taping job squeezed his cheeks together and we thought it made him look like he had chubby cheeks. The funny thing is that today, when they took of the tape he actually did have chubby cheeks. He looks very cute without the tape on his face.
Brandon also had another eye exam. His news wasn’t as good as Katlelyn’s. His eyes are a little worse. He still isn’t in the danger zone but the problem is that the problem is progressing. They will check him again in a couple of days and see how his eyes are doing.
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