Averi had the first of hopefully few setbacks that she will have to endure on this CDH rolllercoaster. The honeymoon period is over... the first 24 hours after birth, a lot of times things seem a lot better than they really are, and then reality sets in. Up until now, Averi has pretty much been sustaining herself, but it has taken a toll.
Several times a day, they do a blood gas. (Click on link for a description.) Basically, they take a small amount of blood and test to see how Averi's lungs are functioning. At this point, The oxygen level (O2) looks good, but there is too much carbon dioxide. (CO2) As a result, they switched her from the conventional ventilator to the high fequency ventilator. After that, they noticed that her blood pressure was low and after fixing that, the next blood gas was not satisfactory. She is now on NO2, which honestly I don't know anything about! I do know that the high frequency ventilator is sort of unnerving to watch. It administers up to several hundred breaths a minute, and shakes the bed.
The other issue is that even though she is sedated, she is still very active. This is bad just because she needs to conserve her energy for recovering from surgery, etc. They like to keep CDH babies as calm as possible, and not let them expend too much energy. Other than that, everything looks as they should for now. The combo of machines and drugs seem to be working and her last blood gas was right where it needed to be. They are waiting for the ultrasound of her chest to see what organs are actually in her chest cavity.
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