Weight- 1lb 15 oz! 1 oz away from 2lbs!
Disposition- fighter!
Today is the day. The s*** or get off the pot kind of day......
The good news. Prudence is improving. Her oxygen levels have been much more stable in the past 2 days. And she is on lower settings on her ventilator and they switched her from SIMV to Pressure support ventilation yesterday afternoon! Awesome! Her chest x-ray is starting to show improvement even though it does still indicate pneumonia being present. This new antibiotic is working wonderfully.
But today is the last day of it. And Prudence has a breathing tube now that is growing out not only serratia, but also a new kind of bacteria (I would tell you what kind but I don't know because our doctor has a really thick accent and I haven't heard anyone else identify it). EEEK! So the breathing tube she has in now has the potential to reinfect her and could possibly just send us back to where we were 2 weeks ago.
So the revolutionary idea of the day you might ask..... REMOVE THE NASTY TUBE FROM MY DAUGHTERS THROAT!
No I am not mad. Just ready for a change for the better.
So the plan for the day is to remove the tube and try her out on the higher c-pap settings on the NIPPV (non invasive positive pressure ventilation) and then see if we can wean her off of that. If we can't wean her down or if she gets worse.....a brand new shiny clean from bacteria breathing tube will go back down. But we are hoping and praying and screaming for that not to happen.
A sad part of working in the hospital business is that a lot of times our treatments to help can also really hurt sometimes. In Prudence's case, the original reintubation when she was just over a week old introduced the serratia bacteria. The doctors chose not to treat it at the time. Since then her lungs have been a wreck. But then the antibiotics that are used to treat some of these bugs also have some negative side effects which is why they didn't rush to start them from the first time she had a positive culture for bacteria.
Hindsight is 20/20.
The echocardiogram to check her heart showed something rather surprising as well. No holes or anything. Instead she has a flattening of the septum between her right and left ventricle. Which means....pulmonary hypertension. Scary to hear at first. It means the pressure on the right side of her heart is higher than what it should be which could be flooding her lungs a bit. EEK! However, as everything goes in micropreemie world, its not crazy for them to hear. So we will monitor. And if it starts to get worse, they can start her on medicine...usually Viagra. Yep. My tiny under two pound daughter could have viagra. Wow.
I know I throw a lot of medical jargon in this. But I know that for us, there is comfort in the medicine of it. Its a language Juan and I know how to speak and we speak it pretty well. I have learned from trying to explain Prudence to our family that there is a big difference in understanding and not which I didn't before. Some people fail to see the seriousness of the situation. Others get scared at the mention of a PIV (which is an IV). I find comfort in knowing more and think that if we arm ourselves with knowledge of the situation, we can move forward better.
On a different note, there was a baby down the way from Prudence that passed away yesterday. The most sorrowful noise I have ever heard in my life came from the room. I cannot fathom the depth of that mother's pain right now. And the calm quite that filled the unit after her cries had left was unnerving. Juan and I spent the night in mourning for that family. While a great many things are possible because of modern medicine, there are truly some things that are in the hands of God. We pray that God is wrapping his loving arms around that family today and lending them all of the strength they need to walk forward. We pray that they have healing and hope renewed someday. Nothing can replace their loss but hopefully with time, they will find peace.
Prayers love and hope from micropreemie world.......
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