Kinley's First Night at Children's Mercy

It is almost midnight on Kinley's first day of life and her first day at Children's Mercy. To increase Kinley's BP they are giving her dopamine, extra saline solution and they can also give her some steroids, but they haven't had to do that yet. (Don't worry yet, there are other BP drugs they can use in case these do not do the trick. I simply don't know the names of them yet and hopefully I never will need to know them.) The maximum amount of dopamine that they can give Kinley is 15 micrograms/kilogram/minute and she is already at 13. Kinley is still continuing to try and breathe on top of her high frequency ventilator so they have decided to give her a paralytic drug, to paralyze her and stop her from trying to breathe on her own. Whenever a patient is put on a paralytic drug they are also given morphine. This is a precautionary measure to make sure Kinley is not in any pain while she is paralyzed. Kinley will only be paralyzed for about an hour, but that will be plenty of time to let the ventilator take control of her breathing.

The most frequent and best test to give us an indication of how Kinley is doing is her blood gases test. For this test, they take a sample of her blood and it is checked to find out her blood Ph (acidity) level, carbon dioxide (CO2) level and oxygen (O2) level. We want the Ph level to be in the 7.3s, the CO2 levels between 35 -45 and the O2 levels above 100 (anything below 60 will require ECMO.) As of midnight her Ph and CO2 levels are looking good and for the first time since she has arrived her O2 levels are above 200. They were 260 to be exact. Way to go Kinley!

Another positive move for Kinley on her first night was a wet diaper. Once again, way to go Kinley! It was only 8 mL, but it is a good sign that her kidneys are working.