Jac doing well and CPAP mask issues

Jac is doing quite well today and so is Momma. Daddy is back at work keeping us all in diapers and health insurance! Alexis is back from Detroit taking care of Momma while Momma takes care of Jac.

Jac is still on the CPAP with no immediate plans to take him off. He is doing well on the CPAP on room air at a pressure of 6. If he continues to do well on the CPAP for another 12 hour or so they will lower the pressure on the CPAP to 5 and then keep on lowering it if he continues to do well - basically wean him off - and eventually if that goes well move him back to the high flow nasal cannulae.

When I got here this morning Jac was having some problems with his CPAP mask - his head and face are so tiny that it is hard to get the strapping and mask well adjusted to stay on his head. He had been on his tummy which had pushed the mask off center and eventually off his nose. An RT came over and tried to fix it and thought she had. Then it came off again. Jac's nurse and and I tried to fix it, and then Jac's nurse and a charge nurse, and then another RT, and then finally we got the original RT to take the entire thing off and readjust it - and then we got it! We also put some duoderm on his face (my idea from other nurse who had done it before) to see if tht would help make another seal. Finally after about an hour we got it fairly settled and were able to do his care and roll him over without disturbing his CPAP. Progress!

Jadc had another tummy Xray last night which looked clean - no clear signs of pneumatosis so the concern about NEC seems to be dying down. Also his blood cultre looking for infection came back negative after 48 hours so that is also a good sign he does not have NEC. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we are out of the woods on that one!

Jac is starting feeds again - much more slowly this time - 0.5 ml per hour. Every 4 hours his nurse will check the residuals in his tummy (she has checked once so far and it was clean - no residuals) to make sure he is digesting his food. His TPN has now been reduced by 0.5 ml per hour to 3.5 ml per hour to take into account the fluid and nutrition coming from my milk.


He is no longer on an OG tube with suction - it has been replaced with a different feeding tube which is yellow rather than clear and slightly smaller. This one cannot be attached to low flow suction from the wall - so if his tummy starts blowing up with air again will need to put the OG tube in again (it is slightly larger) to suck the air out - we need to wait for some more hours of feeding to see if his tummy is going to blow up - the CPAP is blowing air in to his lungs and his tummy and he has had problems with tummy blowing up on CPAP before - but it hasn't so far.

Alexis and I are now just hanging out next to his isolette and he is sleeping away - which is what needs to grow - sleep and eat - and poop and pee - and sleep and eat! Grow Jac grow!