The Ventilator Has Left The Building...I Mean Room

Kayley has been doing so great off the ventilator that it has officially been removed from her room. What a good sign. She still relies quite a bit on the CPAP but that's no problem at all. When they take it off to readjust her head band, her oxygen stats drop pretty fast. Her settings are pretty much the same on the CPAP since when they first put her on it. The pressure is at 7 and her oxygen level fluctuates between 24% and 27%. 21% is room air. They consider her settings pretty low. When they start to ween her, they will adjust the pressure down. I'm sure that won't begin for a couple days.

One thing they need to keep doing with the CPAP is switch out the mask for prongs every now and then. The mask fits so tightly that it squishes her nose. She is so young yet that her nose and ears don't have a lot of firm cartilage to hold them in place. So applying constant pressure on her nose could cause it to form in a not so perfect way.

Kayley was taken off the TPN (total parenatal nutrition) today. This is the nutrition that is given to Kayley through her PCVC. They plan on taking the PCVC out in the next couple days. They are giving it a little bit of time to make sure Kayley does fine without the TPN. Until then, they are pushing fluid through the PCVC to keep it working. After they remove it, Kayley will be down to only one tube...her feeding tube.

Speaking of feeding tube, Kayley is now up to 22 cc's every 3 hours. She has been handling her feedings very well. I'm sure tomorrow she'll be up to 24 cc's...her full feed. Then, let the weight gaining begin.

Megan gave up her holding time with Kayley today so she could give her a bath. It was her turn. The picture above was taken at bath time with Kayley's mask off so you can see her face. It took a while for us to get use to all the tubes going everywhere, but now, it's a little weird to see her without all of them. I could get use to it pretty easy though.

During my time at the hospital tonight, I held Kayley. They are a little less worried about transporting her from the bed to the parent when she is off the ventilator. If the ventilator tube falls out, they have to re-intubate her which is bad. If the mask falls off, it's no problem. They just strap it back on. It use to take two nurses to give Kayley to us. Now it only takes one and she even asked me if I wanted to pick her up myself. I just wasn't quite ready for that yet. Anyway, this is the first time holding her since she's been off the ventilator. She grunts and squeeks quite a bit. I also heard many sneezes which I am attributing to the air going into her nose. And when I moved a little bit and made her mad, she even gave me a couple short cries. I didn't want her to be mad but it was nice to hear that little voice of hers.