Thursday, 3/3

Today was a pretty good day! Whew! We needed that and our little boy definitely needed that!! I thought it was going to be "another one of those days" when I got there this morning and found them switching to the high frequency ventilator again (this one's called a "jet" ventilator). It turned out to be just what he needed. The high frequency ventilator delivers hundreds of little rapid short breaths and is gentler on his little lungs. Within an hour his lungs had opened up on xray and and his blood gases were great. His monitor alarm kept beeping but for once it was because his oxygen saturation was TOO high, instead of too low (it alarms if he's saturating over 95% or less that 85%). We still have a ways to go to get him off the vent but it sure was nice to see him resting comfortably.

On the down side the doctor has a new theory as to the swelling in his head and upper chest. Initially they thought it was just fluid retention or a side effect of just being so sick with the infection. Then they thought it might be a blood clot but that continues to be ruled out with doppler studies. So now the doctor is wondering if it might not be because the PICC line that was in his head had somehow stopped putting all of his fluids (TPN, etc) into the veins as it should and if it was all just going into the soft tissue in his head. If that's the case it will be slow going in terms of it going down. Hopefully his urine output will continue to be good (they are giving medication to help this along) and little by little it will go down. Poor thing is so swollen he can't even open those eyes we love so much...but he sure tries!

We were feeling so "up" after leaving the hospital that Martin and I actually shared a nice dinner out together! The first in weeks. And then I bought my first pair of post-pregnancy jeans which was enough to bring me back down again :)