Jack Kaden

I spoke to Jack’s primary nurse this morning and he continues to remain stable.  I realize that all this information is technical, so I am trying to bring back the links…so here goes. His ventilator rate has been lowered from a high of 20/6 to 14/5. I am not sure what the rate means (breaths per second perhaps?), but lower is better. Before the most recent setback his rate was 9/6.

His Blood Gas is still comes back high on his C02 levels, which means he is still not efficently expelling C02. So they’re maintaining a pretty high level of 02 at 45%. As his lungs recover, this 02 level will be reduced. 

We’ll know the results of his culture today so we’ll get a better understanding of what kind of treatment he is going to require in the near term.

Also, the little man is huge. HUGE I say. He is weighing in at 1525 grams, even with his feedings reduced to 15ccs. 4 pounds (or about 300 grams more than where he is today) and breathing on a nasal cannual buys him a ticket to the step down room. Now I am not trying to get ahead of ourselves here, but that would be a very, very big deal.

Now, on another note. Many of you have commented on the hair. This a constant source of pain for my husband. He has taken to asking everyone in the NICU who treats Jack, the following:

“what are you doing about his red hair?”

Have I mentioned that these people have no sense of humor?

Anyway, my mother just reminded me that I was born with a full head of dark hair, so I guess those genes are prevailing. Now we’re just waiting to see if his eyes remain blue or if they will eventually change to brown.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 8:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.