Alexander's life 3-11-06

SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 2006 09:18 PM, CST
Alex had a bit of trouble with his blood pressure last night. We think it was because he was losing a bunch out of his chest tubes (he apparently thinks this is the way to get extra fluid out of your body, he needs to realize that's why God gave us kidneys) and because the site around his chest tube they replaced was bleeding. He got some blood and he's been doing good all day, even being quite generous with his pressures which led them to wean his dopamine to a 'keeping the line open' level and tonight they are going to start weaning his epinephrine.

They also decided to give him some more iv nutrition which is obviousely something he needs to heal, as well as it will help to replace some of the fluids he's putting out.

His pressure sore on his head is looking a tiny bit better, hopefully it will heal quickly.

Currently Alex's kidneys aren't working. That is probably partly due to the fact that he's losing so much fluid through his chest tubes and that they are pulling the rest off with the PD so his kidneys have nothing to filter, but we would like to see him peeing at least some and currently he's not which is worrisome.

He stopped oozing from his incision today which is a very good thing, it needs to be dry to heal and with all the oozing it's been doing it has been holding up the healing process so maybe now he will start to heal better so we can hold him. His surgeon saw him today and said it looks ok, he's confident it will heal fine.

They did have to go up on his vent rate twice today because his blood gasses were coming back acidotic, why this is no one is really sure but it may be related to the trouble he was having overnight, he is just needing a little more help from the vent to get over the bump.

Alex has learned a new trick to make mommy panic. When they flush his RA line or suction him he drops his heartrate, I've seen it go as low as 17. He really needs to realize that these tricks aren't funny.