Saturday, 3/19

That cute sneeze that we mentioned a few days ago was more ominous than we realized. Dinky has a new acronym to add to his vocabulary: RSV, respiratory syncytial virus. This basically means a "common cold" but in preemies it's much more serious. The bad thing is there is no treatment you just have to wait it out and the course is generally 7-10 days. We're not sure how long he's had it but it certainly explains his bad day yesterday and the diagnosis was confirmed in testing today. When we got there this morning he had been back and forth between the conventional and jet ventilator multiple times and his oxygen requirement was 86%!!! which is very high. We were all set for a hard, hard day. But then they put him on his tummy (for the first time) and it really seemed to make a difference. The thinking is that it loosened up a lot of the secretions that he had and made his breathing a little easier. When we left his oxygen requirement was down to 30%.

The good thing is he is still tolerating his feedings (13mL an hour) so we've made great progress on that end. We'll just hold our breath the next 7-10 days and hope we get through this latest hurdle smoothly. This kid deserves a break soon!