Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Argh! Between my connection being on the fritz and Blogger being down, I haven't been able to update for a day or so, sorry!
They planned to do the heart cath yesterday or today, so at 5am yesterday, with the cath in mind, they stopped feeding him. It turned out that they didn't do the cath, but they did take him off the prostaglandin yesterday at noon! That means that A.) We don't have to be concerned about him going on the respirator. B.) The doctors felt that his oxygenation was being supplied by the peripheral vessels and not the shunt. C.) He's feeling better because the prostaglandin causes the body temperature to rise and causes irritability and generally makes you feel shitty. He's been exceptionally content anyway, but you can just look at him and see that he feels better, just by the facial expression. And D.) Erin and Scotty are overjoyed at the removal from said meds because it negates a lot of worries about breathing and eating complications.
So overall yesterday was a good day.
They decided that he's strong and healthy enough that they're putting off the heart cath as far as possibly next week. This is good news for Nova, that he's that strong, but frustrating for us, because it's more waiting without knowing exactly what the "geography" is in there. The surgery can't even really be planned until after the cath, so it also extends how long he'll be hospitalized. We're looking at 6 weeks or so as best I can tell so far. Christmas is going to be difficult, because all of me will want to be in 2 places at once. That isn't exactly new news, but it sort of sank in at some point last night.
They stopped feeding him for the cath that never happened, but continued to not feed him so that they can evaluate how he does without the prostaglandin. The purpose of which is to keep open a particular vessel that normally closes shortly after birth in a new baby. In other words, they were afraid that if it closed, he wouldn't be getting oxygenated blood to his body and that his o2 levels would drop. Eating causes changes in the breathing patterns that can also cause lowered o2 levels, so if his oxygen levels drop, they wanted to know for sure what caused it, hence, no feedings. So far his levels are high and they were going to start feeding him again at something like 5am. I haven't been able to call and talk to anyone yet today, and we won't be able to go until this evening, so we don't know anything for today, but that's the news as of last night.
There are new pictures to post, but they're on Scotty's PC not mine yet so I'll do that later too.
congenital heart defect
posted by Erin @
3:51 PM
Name: