Aug 15, 2007

Flexible Pattern

Just a quick update for tonight. Andrew has continued to do well on his sprints....they're still at 90 minutes. He just finished his midnight sprint and had a great gas afterwards. They've stretched the time between his blood tests to 12 hours, timed to take place after each sprint. His CO2 is at 52, which is great...it was even lower this afternoon, at 46. They're not making any changes to his ventilator settings at the moment, as he's pretty close to as low as you can go. He's at ten breaths per minute and they won't lower that at all...it's already "minimal." He has some pressure support, which means his breaths are recognized and the machine gives him a bit of pressure to overcome the difficulty of the tube. They've already lowered the pressure from 12 to 10 to 8. Between lowering the pressure and extending the sprint times, the next few days should be challenging enough to prepare him for his next extubation.

Andrew's feedings have gone well recently. No spit-up episodes and plenty of poop, so they're raising his feeds by 1cc every nine hours. He's currently getting 8cc per hour, and that will go to 9 in a couple of hours. The eventual goal is to get to 25cc per hour, giving him 75cc every three hours. When that works, they'll lower the time window, giving him 75cc in 2.5 hours, then 2 hours, etc.

More pictures later...for now, have a nice Wednesday.

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