Since his arrival into this world on Friday, they have installed chest tubes to drain the fluid from his chest cavity and put him on a breathing machine as well as a blood pressure regulator medicine and pain medication. Initally he was trying to breathe on his own, but it was counter productive to the breathing machine. So they put him on a paralytic so that they could have better control. He is also extremely succeptible to stimulation, such as noise, light, temperature, etc. His blood pressure drops suddenly and rapidly when he has been 'stimulated'. They are trying to prevent any type of stimulation. The machines have been keeping him alive up to this point. They are trying to slowly wean him off the machines/medicines. He is getting chest x-rays every 12 hours to see if any progress has been made. His x-rays have shown that most of the fluid in his lungs is gone; this is the wonderful news! Unfortunately, they have also shown a pocket of air around his heart and a possible mass in his lungs. Tuesday he had a very risky procedure to release the trapped air (sticking a needle into the sack of air to release it) that he came through like a champ! The unfortunate part is that since then, the air has recollected and so the procedure will need to be performed again. They are trying to get him stable enough to endure more tests, such as an MRI and CATSCAN. :( It really feels like we've been on an emotional roller coaster since Friday night. We get good news, then not so good news . . . Ugh!
This picture shows Lawson one day old. The glowing light on his hand is the pulse oximeter measuring the oxygen saturation in his blood. The orange circle does the same thing; one is a premeasurement and the other is post. On his left arm is the PICC line leading through his vein and to a large vein near his heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment