"Baby Steps" or "Ayden Steps"

Ayden's early morning chest x-ray showed no collapse! YEAH! His lungs were, however, still a bit wet. His nurse, Lauren, tells me that his chest tubes dumped about 40ml all at one time, so it's possible that that fluid was part of the wetness shown on the x-ray. Ayden's respiratory therapists did some deep suctioning, and they got out a lot of gunk, which is also good; his RT also changed out his mask to something that wouldn't leak quite so much. (Ayden has a big head but a little chin, so there has been much discussion on what kind of mask to put on him to maximize the support he is receiving from the BiPAP.) They are continuing to diurese him; Dr. Smith says he wants to keep Ayden a little bit on the drier side, and he determined that they needed to slowly wean the BiPAP; they started by going down on the pressures (from 10 to 8) and oxygen (45% to 40%). English, Ayden's former NICU resident and current PCCU fellow, comforted me by telling me, "Ayden is by no means failing the BiPAP." They are going to continue to draw blood gases every four hours, so we'll see...

Ayden is a tad bit out of it. He got angry when they were messing with him this morning, but he hasn't really tantrumed since then. They decreased his Methadone and Ativan to see if they could wake him up a bit without causing him to be too upset.

The sputum and blood cultures that they took yesterday showed NO infection! I am thrilled by this because it means that the tracheitis (if he ever actually had it) has cleared up. Ayden has to stay on Vancomycin for 14 days and remain on contact isolation during that time as a precaution.

Dr. Smith, a new cardiac intensivist that I have grown to really like (the same one that investigated possible diaphragm paralysis), says that we are going to take this "baby steps." Bryan says what he really means is that we are going to take this "Ayden steps."

Christie Huggins and Diana Dowdle, mothers of their own precious hypoplasts, have been very supportive during these frustrating days in the PCCU. Christie shared with me some verses in 2 Corinthians that remind me that I have Hope. We are not spared sin and suffering on this earth, but God has never abandoned Ayden or us. I know too that our struggles provide opportunity for God to demonstrate his greatness. Therefore, I "do not lose heart" (2 Corinthians 4: 16 NIV).

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Note: We just got the 12:30 blood gas back, which reflects how Ayden is doing on the new BiPAP settings. His CO2 is the same, and his lactate came down (good!). All other numbers remain the same. The RT tells me Ayden is on the smallest settings that they place someone on when they place them on that particular machine. I am encouraged!

Note #2: As a result of his better blood gas, Dr. Smith took him down to a peep of 6 on BiPAP. Yeah, Ayden! Praise Jesus!