You would think the NICU doctors would have learned by now: Don't say that things are going well and expect them to stay that way. Not in front of Will, anyway. History has proven otherwise:
Dr. Roghair said he thought Will would have a good night. Will crashed.
Dr. Klein said he wasn't worried about Will. Will crashed.
Dr. Dagle said Will probably won't have a post-operative crash.
Yes, Will crashed. A bit. After more than 48 hours of stability, his CO2 numbers were troublingly high just around dawn today. As was the solution the last time this happened, they turned up the ventilator setting that shakes him (and by extension helps him to shake off the excess CO2). That meant it sounded like someone was operating a jackhammer in his room when we came in for our morning visit. The good news, however, is bountiful. Where in the past a CO2 problem was only one of his worries, today all of his other numbers were in good ranges. And, the increased amplitude (the rate he shakes, basically) seems to be doing the trick. His numbers dropped (which is the desired direction) and he seems to be stabilizing. We hope by the time we go back to see him again tonight they will have turned that down a bit.
Beyond that, he had a bit of trouble digesting his food the last two times they fed him, but they admit that might be a function of not feeding him enough. The 2cc he gets every eight hours right now might not be a sufficient quantity to trigger his stomach to actually do something with it. Or, the fact that he was on morphine until this morning might have slowed things, too.
It was tough seeing him have some troubles after being lulled into thinking he was just going to waltz through surgery relatively unscathed, but overall he still is doing very well. Sometimes it's difficult to look beyond the minute-by-minute fluctuations we see when we're there for a long visit and focus instead on the big picture. When we do take that broad view on a day like today, we realize he's doing OK despite some setbacks.
Dr. Roghair said he thought Will would have a good night. Will crashed.
Dr. Klein said he wasn't worried about Will. Will crashed.
Dr. Dagle said Will probably won't have a post-operative crash.
Yes, Will crashed. A bit. After more than 48 hours of stability, his CO2 numbers were troublingly high just around dawn today. As was the solution the last time this happened, they turned up the ventilator setting that shakes him (and by extension helps him to shake off the excess CO2). That meant it sounded like someone was operating a jackhammer in his room when we came in for our morning visit. The good news, however, is bountiful. Where in the past a CO2 problem was only one of his worries, today all of his other numbers were in good ranges. And, the increased amplitude (the rate he shakes, basically) seems to be doing the trick. His numbers dropped (which is the desired direction) and he seems to be stabilizing. We hope by the time we go back to see him again tonight they will have turned that down a bit.
Beyond that, he had a bit of trouble digesting his food the last two times they fed him, but they admit that might be a function of not feeding him enough. The 2cc he gets every eight hours right now might not be a sufficient quantity to trigger his stomach to actually do something with it. Or, the fact that he was on morphine until this morning might have slowed things, too.
It was tough seeing him have some troubles after being lulled into thinking he was just going to waltz through surgery relatively unscathed, but overall he still is doing very well. Sometimes it's difficult to look beyond the minute-by-minute fluctuations we see when we're there for a long visit and focus instead on the big picture. When we do take that broad view on a day like today, we realize he's doing OK despite some setbacks.
posted by John Kenyon at 2:53 PM
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