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Our son Maxton was diagnosed with left-sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) at his 19 week ultrasound. Maxton was born on 3/3/09 at Vanderbilt University. He fought hard for 18 days but earned his wings on 3/21/09. Maxton was an inspiration to many during his brief time on earth and has forever changed our lives. If your child is diagnosed with CDH, please feel free to contact us. Maxton may no longer live here on earth, but he will live forever in our hearts...

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I don't need no stinkin vent

I am not sure what the deal with Max is, but I think he got perturbed when they said he wouldn't have surgery until Thursday. Yesterday evening and all day today Max has been breathing WAY over the vent. While it is good that he wants to breath he still needs to rest. He is taking these huge breaths regularly and it is interfering with the vents job (not to mention causing his heart rate to go up from running in the 130s-140s to the 170s) Apparently, he also peed over his cathater today. I told his nurse that he is ready to graduate to being a baby who doesn't need all this equipment. I've been telling him all day that NEXT week he can try to be a big boy, but this week he needs to rest. :- )

This morning rounds went okay. They are going to switch his fentanyl to morphine because of the breathing. They decided that since he has been on fentanyl for about 2 weeks that he is likely just used to it, so they will make the change over sometime today. They turned off his dopamine. This means Max is only on morphine and versed! Go Max! His brain oximeter is reading way high (which is good) like in the 90s. This measures how much oxygen his brain is getting. They want him to stay above 50. His nitric oxide is down to 2.5 and his oxygen is at 52-55. His delta p is at 28, and the MAP is at 12.0. ( I am writing all of this in case some CDH mom in the future finds it useful and to explain things to Max one day). All of these numbers are good. We had to bump up the delta p due to his over breathing. The oxygen is up a little because they are weaning the nitric.

David and I are going back to check on our sweet baby later today. I got some cute pictures of him in his green socks (so that the nurses couldn't pinch him). Hopefully I will post them tonight! Happy St. Patricks Day!!

3 comments:

Craig and Kristi Kuehl said...

Keep the good updates coming...selfishly, they are getting me thru the past couple of days :) Our prayers are definately working and you two should be so proud of how hard Max is fighting!! Keep it up....\

((((HUGS)))))

Jen said...

Wow Maxton, you are just showing everyone who's boss!! Keep it up big guy!

Jen

Ashworth Family said...

That's great news! Maxton is such a trooper. He's going to do great in surgery!