Sick Little Guy - 36 Days Old

Today was a stressful day. When we called the nurse this morning to get an update on Aiden, she said that he had had a really rough night. His right lung had almost completely collapsed and they were having problems keeping his oxygen saturation up where it needed to be. They tried him on three different ventilators and finally settled on one that seemed to be doing the job. Even on the new ventilator, they had to keep his oxygen level at 100%. The nurse said they were planning to do an echocardiogram to look at his heart.

Doing the echocardiogram

We decided to skip our stake conference and head to the hospital as soon as we could get ready. When we arrived at the hospital, we saw three ventilators, one of which Aiden was hooked to, sitting at his bedside. He looked swollen again. He was still on 100% oxygen, but was sleeping fairly peacefully. The nurse said that he has pneumonia and they were thinking he may have a fungal infection, so they had started him on an antifungal antibiotic. After we had been there for a while, the head NICU physician, Dr. Minton, came in to do the echocardiogram. As he and Dr. Gerday, the neonatologist, looked at the screen, they could see a mass at the opening of the inferior vena cava. They said it was either fungal growth or a mass of fibrin, the mesh structure in blood that aids in clotting. The mass should clear out if they can get the fungal infection under control.

Machines, machines, and more machines

Aiden still has the Anderson tube in his belly to suction out the excess air. I asked the doctor if he thought the fungal infection is contributing to the problems with his bowel and he said he didn't think so. Still, if they can get the respiratory problems resolved, they will be able to concentrate on the bowel issue. As we were getting ready to leave, they decided to change Aiden back to the oscillating ventilator. To to that, they had to change his breathing tube. It was really difficult for Amaraa to watch and she left crying. When they finished intubating him and got him positioned normally in bed, we decided to leave. We called and talked to the nurse this evening and Aiden was still on 100% oxygen, but his oxygen saturation was in the high 80s (that's good) and he was doing much better overall than last night.

After we got back from the hospital, we watched "Tangled" with Skylar and Jasmine. It is the first time any of us have seen it. What a cool movie! I slept through most of it, so the kids wanted to watch it again after I woke up from my nap. It was fun to spend some time with Sky and Jazzy. It always seems like we can never spend enough time at the hospital with Aiden and we can never spend enough time with Sky and Jazzy at home.