| The NICU Experience | Aaron update 14 |
| Subject: Aaron update 14 Date: Monday, December 16, 2002 3:50 PM From: Kevin Quick To: Aaron Update List I’m home now, for the week. Kathleen is staying at the hospital in San Francisco. I’ll be going back down to SF on Friday. Aaron continues to do just fine. The IV line in his leg has worn out, so the doctors will be trying again to put a “deep line” in his arm today (a line that goes up close to his heart, so they can put in the 20% glucose solution, etc.). They tried to put this line in several times before, without success. Maybe it will be successful today, since he now has slightly bigger veins to work with. His feedings continue to do well. He’s still getting 1cc of milk every 3 hours, and he seems to be processing it just fine. The doctors have decided to keep Aaron on the ventilator (the breathing machine that has a plastic tube going into his mouth and down his trachea, which he can and does breath around on his own), while they concentrate on keeping his feedings going. Once they’re confident that his feedings will continue to do well, they’ll try putting him on CPAP again. Lisa told me yesterday that the ventilator is unavoidably damaging to a baby’s lungs, but that we should expect this damage to be repaired by the body’s healing systems in subsequent months and years. In the old days, she said, preemie babies were routinely kept on the ventilator for 6 weeks after birth. Today, it’s down to a week or two, and Aaron was taken off the ventilator for the first time after just a few days. I’m sure Kathleen would love your phone calls this week. The direct phone number to her room is 415-600-XXXX (room #114). (The photo is from a couple of days ago, when Aaron was on CPAP.) Love, Kevin Later... Kathleen has been moved to room #406. Her phone # is now 415-600-XXXX. |
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