May 29 - Late Evening

21:24 – The 20:00 blood gas came back "good". Max' CO₂ was 59%, a little high, but manageable. He gets to stay on the CPAP for now. I was afraid that he would have to re-intubated the very same day he was taken off a ventilator. So that's a worry that's closer to being behind us. There's another blood gas scheduled for 05:00 tomorrow morning. With any luck, he'll continue down this path.

Just a few words on blood gas labs - every time they do this, it's necessary to lance his heel. Can you imagine having your heel jabbed with a lancet multiple times per day?

His blood sugar is back up to good levels as well. The dextrose and amino IV drip seems to be working. No wonder he was grumpy and trying to pull out his feeding tube. I'm also a tad irritable when my blood sugar dips.

Because of the blood in his digestive tract (as evidenced during diaper changes), it was decided to take him off milk for the time being and put him on "predigested" formula; a product called Nutramigen LIPIL. After getting a whiff of this pungent beverage myself, I can only say that Max is lucky that it's delivered via feeding tube instead of having to taste it.

23:15 – Max was going Hi-Sat on his SPO₂ so the RRT lowered his oxygen percentage to 30%. Then, within minutes, he began to continuously De-Sat. She set his oxygen up a bit to 32%. It seems that if it's not one thing, it's another.


23:39 – Blood sugar test just came back "good" (88). Accu-Chek, another heel stab. The residual from the previous feeding (5cc) had a little blood in it, but it looked dark and old, and there was no blood in the stool, so the physician made the call to continue with feeding as planned.