thursday 8/22/2013

Today was fairly stable for Ava. Her work of breathing increased in a sense.  Her heart rate is high and her respiratory rate was really high. The ventilator is set at 12 breaths per minute, but she is breathing between 60 and 80 breaths per minute. A big problem with this, aside from the energy it takes, is that her breaths are very shallow. She could not be extubated because, at these rates, she wouldn't be able to inflate that damaged lung. She needs to take slow deep breaths. They were thinking that she may have been in pain so they adjusted the morphine and made it more frequent. I think they are tackling the withdrawals better because she is no longer sweating profusely or having periods of crying. The night nurse tonight says that she looks a lot more comfortable. There is a possibility of extubation tomorrow, but I am not counting on it. They increased her feeds again and she is still on continuous feeds so she never feels hunger- which is probably a blessing for now. The room was obnoxious again with 6 babies, 6 nurses, surgical teams and lots of family members. In that tiny little room I overheard the entire conversation about the baby next to us. (So much for HIPPA when you're 2 feet from someone else's doctor). That baby has a couple vacterl issues too, not nearly as severe as Ava though. The mom was having a hard time yesterday. We're kind of in the "newbie" room with new moms and new babies. Our primary nurse assured me that we'd be moved because, like I said yesterday, they wouldn't be able to have her huge crib in the middle of the room...and she shouldn't have to put up with such chaos while we are just sitting here waiting for the next surgery.