When we went up to the NICU this morning his oxygen percent was up to 66. That is 9 percent higher than he was all day yesterday, and over the night all night the he was around 52%.

We wondered why he was needing more oxygen.  Is he building up fluid around his lungs which is a possible side effect of surgery that can take a while to present itself. Is he derecruiting lung volume again.  She says it sounds like he is breathing shallow.  

It’s a nurse today that has not had him before,  she says he had been hanging out lower 85 spo2 and not wanting to come up so she has had to bump him up.

They have weaned his morphine by half.  From .08cc to .04. They did this around 8am. I ask if he could be sore because he is getting less morphine and not wanting to breathe as deep.  She says she doesn’t think he should be in much if any pain anymore.

Last night when we asked the doctor she reminded us he just had surgery and they would wean him off of pain medication very slowly bease we want him comfortable.

He desats down to 87 spo2 and then creeps back up to 88. He kind of lingers below 90. And then dips down to 87. He continues this for several minutes and the nurse says this is what he did earlier.  She turns his oxygen up to 67.

He looks deeply asleep but nearly all his breaths are self initiated.  We are waiting on an order for a new medication,  albuterol.

We hang out and stare at him,  coach him through his small desat events, and eventually its lunch time,  we do a quick lunch and head back up.

We do cares. His temp is a full degree high at 38.  It feels like a decent pee diaper.

Nurse changes the mode of heating on his bed.  Air temp set to 31.5.

Respiraroty therapist gives him his albuterol after cares the nurse is able to quickly wean his oxygen percent down to 52% then 51%. He seems to like it!

Increased heart rate is a side effect of albuterol he hits 208 bpm every once in a while briefly.

Dr. Comes by and talks to us about getting the lung doctor onboard now that his PDA is closed. We mention our concerns from earlier about the higher oxygen needs but now that we are heading back down to 51% its not as concerning for us.

We discusses his inguinal hernia which is something we had only heard about down in Tacoma.  It’s fairly normal for preemie boys to have.  Sounds like it may require surgery at some point. Still new to hear about,  not sure how we weren’t told about it before.

He gets another dose of his albuterol 4 hours after the last one to stager it apart from his theophylline because both raise his heart rate. He dings off of 200 and gets up to 214 bpm a few times.  He is comfortable looking though.

1700 Then it’s time for cares again, and skin to skin time! It is my turn.  Transfer is easier now, he doesn’t have any IV lines to get tangled or deal with.  Just him,  his spo2 wire, respiraroty and heart rate wires. And ofcourse his ventilator lines.  We get comfy.  Two warm blankets are placed over him,  he suckles his tubes.  His eyes are open and looking up at me occasionally. It has been too long since we have gotten our skin time! He keeps alarming every once in a bit for going above 200 bpm heart rate.  The nurse turns the alarm up to 205.

1900 shift change,  one of his primary nurses again! A respiraroty therapist that’s had him too, one of the first ones to see him open his eyes!  They are both thrilled to have him back. We are thilled to be back!

2000 it’s time to put him back.  It was a good time! He didn’t drop on his spo2 at all,  but his heart rate alarmed a bunch. New different problems.  We will see how he does with spreading out the albuterol further, maybe his heart rate won’t climb as much.

Cares,  just some pee and a small smear of poo. Maybe he is working on one!

Suctioned,  large amount of secretions.  I feel like certain people are able to get more out of him, not sure why.

We tuck him in to bed and get him swaddled up and turned on his right side.  The nurse inspects his surgery site, light pink around one edge,  no oozing or anything weird.

Time for us to go get dinner.

2330 update the blog. Bed.

Sleep well.

Another day of growing!