| The NICU Experience | Aaron update 84 |
| Subject: Aaron update 84 Date: Friday, February 28, 2003 11:51 AM From: Kevin Quick To: Aaron Update List We’re back in San Francisco. We’re in room 125 this time, phone #415-600-XXXX. We’re gearing up for around-the-clock breast feedings. Aaron’s gavage feedings are a thing of the past; he’s now only breast and bottle feeding. Last night and this morning he breast fed well, but then didn’t take much from the bottle. Maybe he’s getting most of what he needs from the breast? We’ll have to try weighing him again before and after breast feeding to see if we can figure out just how much he’s getting from the breast. (I think someone needs to invent a breast milk flow monitor.) Aaron’s oxygen requirements continue to decrease, which is good. This morning, while breast feeding, he was at 25% oxygen. He had to be bumped up to 32% for bottle feeding; bottle feeding requires more oxygen for some reason. Again, our goal is to get down to 21%, at which point Aaron will just breathe ambient air like the rest of us, and won’t need his nasal cannula any longer. If we can’t wean him down that far, he’ll have to come home on oxygen, which will mean training for Kathleen and me, as well as the nasal cannula and respiration monitor for Aaron. If he doesn’t come home on oxygen, he won’t need any monitors. This would be nice, as we’re looking forward to Aaron not having any tubes or wires (these make clothes-changing tricky, among other things), and we’ve heard that the respiration monitor has a warning sound like that of a smoke alarm, which would undoubtedly jolt us out of sleep (mostly with false alarms) from time to time. But, of course, we’ll do whatever we need to do. Good news from Dr. Good! Kathleen and I met with him this morning. He checked out Aaron’s eyes, and said that they’re getting better! He said that Aaron now has mostly stage 1 ROP, and a little stage 2, but Dr. Good is hopeful that Aaron’s ROP will be able to take care of itself. Yes! Dr. Good will still see Aaron every week for the next couple of weeks, though, to make sure things keep going in the right direction. Here’s a picture that I took of Dr. Good this morning doing his thing. Have a good weekend! Kevin |
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