| The NICU Experience | Aaron update 87 |
| Subject: Aaron update 87 Date: Monday, March 3, 2003 12:15 PM From: Kevin Quick To: Aaron Update List Aaron gained 35 grams yesterday, so he weighed in this morning at 2440 grams, or 5.37 pounds. Fortunately, it looks as though Saturday was just a difficult feeding day, for no apparent reason. We seem to be right back on track again; we’re continuing with the on-demand feedings. Aaron’s oxygen requirements continue to decrease, which is very good. Over the past day or two, he’s been in the 22% to 25% oxygen range most of the time, even during many of his feedings. (As I write this, he’s at 24.8% oxygen, with 100% blood oxygen saturation, while breast feeding...make that 22.6%; nurse Jo just turned the oxygen down again...Jo is impressed...she just turned him down to “room air”...now 20.9%, still with mid-90’s% saturation, which is perfect...but see later note...) We’re getting quite hopeful that he may be weaned off of oxygen before he comes home. He just needs to grow a few more alveoli in his lungs, so he’ll be able to draw all the oxygen he needs from ambient air (21% oxygen) without working too much. Apparently, he might be able to function on ambient air now, but he would have to expend too much energy on breathing, and this would not leave enough extra energy for him to use for growth. (Later: Dr. Lewis said that she’d like to see Aaron have a little “reserve capacity,” too, before being taken completely off of oxygen.) (Later note: We just spent a half hour with Dr. Kathy Lewis, who got to see Aaron crash and burn this morning after choking on his bottle (I was doing the bottle feeding, after Kathleen did her breast feeding): his oxygen saturation went down to 50%, he turned blue, etc. Anyway, Dr. Lewis said that if we hope to bring Aaron home without oxygen, we’re looking at two weeks from now, anyway. Two weeks from today would bring us to Aaron’s due date of March 17.) Kathleen gave Aaron his third bath last night. He seemed to enjoy it! I’ll be heading home today, and Kathleen will be staying in San Francisco for the week. I plan on coming back down to SF on Friday, as per our usual schedule. Love, Kevin, Kathleen & Aaron |
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