Rough Day

Kale had a bit of a rough day today. Throughout the night his blood gases were pretty bad, so they had to change his vent setting back to the 'assist' mode. Now when he initiaties the breath the vent will kick in and help him finish it. They also turned his breaths per minute back up to 55. His gases throughout the day haven't really looked any better, so they are doing another one at 4pm to see how it looks and we're hoping it looks much better! His lung x-ray was pretty bad this morning as well, and they have been getting a lot of mucus out when they have been suctioning him. Today the secretions were a pale yellow color which can indicate infection. Because of this the poor guy had to go through the gauntlet of the infection tests which included a spinal tap, cultures for urine, blood and his ET tube. He also had a CRP test done which tests for inflammation and can indicate infection. His numbers came back pretty high on this at 1.2. The last time he got these tests they were really low at .1 and .2, so we're kind of nervous that it's so much higher. It will probably take a few days to get the results back from his cultures. They started him on antibiotics to be proactive if there is an infection somewhere.

His blood sugars and electrolytes looked good today, so they are continuing his doses that are helping with those. He did get to increase his feeds again today, so he's up to 22 mls every 3 hours fortified at 27 calories. He's only 8mls away from having an OUNCE of food each hour! We're confident this will continue to help him grow and get stronger.

That's about all to report for now, I'll update again later if we get any results back. At this point we just ask that you keep him in your prayers and if he does have an infection he can kick it quickly and get back to focusing on getting his lungs better. The rollercoaster continues.