Danielle had a pretty good weekend. On Friday's post I had mentioned the concern that she had been dropping her stats and heart rate during the day. Well we received a phone call in the middle of the night from the doctor that they had to put her back on the vent. He stressed that this was not that big of a deal as her settings were fairly low. They did upon reintibation notice that she had a fairly large secretion in the very back of her airway. Upon suctioning this her stats did improve but they still figured that back on the vent for a period of days would help give her a rest as she had been off it since she was 4 days old. So since last night her setting have gone from where they were to the lowest possible settings on this vent. It is giving her 20 breaths per min. but she is breathing well above that at 50-60, which is making her a bit confused. Because she is trying to over breath it when it kicks in. But they will still leave her on it for another day or so. They did though say that if her tube were to come out they would not put it back in and they would put her back on CPAP instead. The docs are very impressed with her respiratory status regardless of being back on the vent.
She has been handling her feeds well. She is up to 4.8 ml's every 3 hours and is having less than 50% residual or no residual every time. This is her ultimate 'salvation' as one of the doctors says because feedings do so much for these preemies as they do for all of us.
They are still in the process of figuring out the total amount of fluid that she is needing. Her sodium has continued to be low. With some consultation from a doctor at the University of Minnesota it is determined that they need to up her sodium requirements even more. They have also had to up the amount of total fluid she is getting during the day compared to any other preemie comparable to her. She just pee's it out so fast but with a lack of sodium her urine output decreases, which is where they were concerned about the kidneys before and thinking the worst. They seem to be getting it under control. The lack of sodium also is one of the results of her being back on the vent. I don't know how to explain it, but the doctor explained it to me today and it made clear sense. Just a technical issue as he explained it in the short sense.
So overall Danielle is being a trooper and doing good. Here are a few pictures from today. She is opening her eyes always when she is awake and they are closed when she is sleeping. Her foot probably looks big in this up close picture, but it really puts it in perspective how small it really is when you see my wedding ring around it. I thought I would try and see if it would work and it was just unreal when my ring was even bigger than the circumference of her foot. Teeny tiny that is for sure. Anyway, she is breathing good, going potty decent when she has the amount of fluid she needs, and eating all of her food. This is what we pray with her about every day. With all of these things going good it makes her days a lot easier.~
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