06/09/2007

Fever broke, extubated, moved to bay 2.... Did that make your head spin? It sure as heck made our heads spin. Basically, last night, the elusive Dr. K came in to check on Emery and saw he was awake and moving and happy. He asked if he had been like that throughout the day, which he was, so he told us he was extubating Emery today at about 9 a.m. We were all okay with it. Next thing you know, he came back in and said "There's no need to keep him sedated all night on the vent. I'm thinking we'll just do it tonight." Then he paced around in and out of Emery's room and back and forth and basically, Emery came off the vent last night at 9 p.m. no problems but went back up to a CPAP of 10. He started at 9, and then had to go up a bit, but that's okay. He wasn't doing that great on a CPAP of 8 anyway. So, we asked the elusive Dr. K about the nitric and weaning, and he said Dr. A should have a home-going plan and a long-term plan for Emery and we should know it, and then he came back and said "well, I can override anybody's decisions here anyway." He's actually funny in a really smart Rainman sort of way. Anyway, a 24-weeker was born and needed Emery's bed so they transferred him, this time to Bay 2, and then his fever broke shortly thereafter. He's also being weaned from all pain meds now, which will be a bit tough since he's been on morphine, Ativan, and chloral hydrate since birth, and he's apparently built up a significant tolerance to all of it. He was happy this morning for a bit but cried and fussed and then fell asleep with his food, like a normal baby. We've got some good videos of him smiling and cooing, and I apparently have to download a program on the computer in order to save the videos on the computer, but rest assured there will a come a point where you all can see Emery in action. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Emery had a CO2 of 30... which is BEYOND phenomenal! It was on the vent, of course, and that's what started the weaning process. He was doing well enough that he really didn't become dependent on it, and it didn't seem to cause too much trauma to his lungs. The only thing I've noticed so far is that he seemed to lose some of his drive to suck. It's sort of like he forgot how to. That's supposed to come back in a few days. His incision site is no longer red and his Penrose drain should be out shortly, within a day or two. He looks really good and giggled today.