These little bumps in the road are becoming more and more frequent it seems. Blake has been desatting (decrease in oxygen saturation in his haemoglobin) quite a bit and has been needing more oxygen. For a baby who was successfully weaned off the ventilator, this is odd. Even with his surgery being over a week ago, his oxygen numbers have stayed pretty high.
He had an echocardiogram done yesterday to see if maybe that blood vessel in his heart was wide open and may be the reason for the all the breathing issues. The results showed that vessel was not wide at all and would not be causing issues. So the next step was to order up an ultra sound for his belly and chest. His belly looked great. No blockages or anything to worry about there but his chest did look a little hazy which makes sense because they have been suctioning out quite a bit of foggy secreations from his lungs. There has been some speculation that he may have pneumonia so they put him on another antibiotic yesterday and will continue that for a full cycle.
Last night his oxygen levels got extremely high. They tried a different type of ventilation but he didn't seem to like it and went back to the one he was originally on. Now that he's had these issues continue and get worse, they now pretty much know its pneumonia.
He was given another dose of surfactant this morning which helps open up those air ways and capillaries and it prevents fluid accumulation so it keeps the airways dry. The surfactant seems to have helped quite a bit. They were able to lower his oxygen levels from 100 to 75. 75 is still extremely high but he is slowly coming down. Ideally, we'd like him to get to at least 20-30.
It just seems like once we conquer one issue, another arises. Pneumonia is scary but they seemed to have caught it early on. The antibiotics should start taking effect in the next day or so. Patrick and I are with him right now and his vitals are really good and he seems content. If they can keep weaning the ventilator to a smaller oxygen percentage then we should be okay. The fact that he's done so well since the dose of surfactant is a good sign. We just have to wait and let the antibiotics work their magic. I don't think I've ever appreciated all the medical technology that we have until now. It's amazing what they have for these little tiny premature babies. I'm learning more about the body, its functions and medicine here in the last few weeks of being in the hospital with Blake than I ever did in school.
So please continue to keep our little Blake in your prayers. He is pushing through and being so strong. I keep hoping that he's done with all these obstacles but he keeps getting put to the test. He's such a little trooper and I believe the prayers are being heard so please keep them coming.
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