Logan's Update

I’m going to try and give a full Monday -Thursday update so that I can start with little daily updates tomorrow…so hopefully I can go back and fill in all the pieces so they will make sense…
Logan had some fluid in his lungs when he was born so they put him on cpap. Unfortunately cpap gave him too much pressure so some air escaped from his lungs and is putting pressure on the outside of his lungs so he has to work harder to get enough oxygen. There is a little flap in between the lungs that all babies have. When there is too much pressure inside the lungs it can cause the flap to open and air escapes.
Logan’s doctor showed me the chest xrays so I could see how they’ve changed since he was born. They’re doing a “nitrogen wash”…the air on the outside of the lungs is 80 percent nitrogen, so they crank up the oxygen to try and replace the nitrogen with oxygen so the lungs will absorb it. She said they won’t start to wean his oxygen down until he’s consistently at 97 percent saturation and then they’ll take him off 1 percent at a time to maintain saturation. She said it’s very manageable right now so they can easily care for him here. If for some reason the air around the lungs dramatically increases they’ll have to put in a chest tube to relieve the pressure and then he’ll have to go to Richland because there’s a greater risk of infection. She doesn’t see that happening, but it’s a worst case scenario.
Yesterday he was on 70 percent oxygen. The air we breathe is 21 percent (thanks LB & Kim). Today he’s down to 40 percent oxygen!!! His saturation is staying up and his pneumothorax seem seems to be healing itself. His respiratory rate is still up and down. If he’s in a deep sleep he breathes like a normal baby, but if he’s moving around or awake his respiratory rate is still pretty high. They’ll continue to slowly decrease his oxygen as long as his saturation stays up and they’ll get another chest x-ray in the morning to check the progress of the pneumo.
He’s getting 5CCs of my milk every 3 hours through his feeding tube. His doctor said that now that I’m starting to make more she’ll bump him up to 10CCs tomorrow. What he lacks from my milk they make up with IV fluids.
His bilirubin was 11.9. Anything higher than 12 for his prematurity has to go under the lights. Since he was so close his doctor went ahead and turned on his tanning lights. Macy and Steven both had jaundice, so I wasn’t surprised to see his lights on today.
I haven’t asked about his weight yet. I’ll check on that the next time I go visit…hopefully he hasn’t lost too much.
There is still no idea when he’ll come home. It will all depend on his neumo healing, his oxygen saturation staying up, staying infection-free, and getting all 8 feedings in once he’s able.
I took some more pictures today that I’ll try to get online tonight. Thank you so much for your prayers and patience as I play “catch up” with keeping everyone informed. Hopefully I’ll be able to update daily from now on. 🙂