Friday, June 20th - First night off ECMO

A little before shift change we were able to go in and see Kinley again. It had been 21 days since we had seen Kinley without ECMO tubes going into her neck and she looks so much better now without those in!! Her body was pretty swollen after everything she had been through, but she looked beautiful to us. Also, Kinley has her high frequency ventilator back because she was having some difficulties getting rid of CO2 on the conventional vent.

After shift change we came back to Kinley's baby station and found nurse Kathy (really a nurse named Kathy, not Kinley's mommy) taking care of Kinley. Technically, since Kinley is not on ECMO anymore she only requires one nurse, but Carrie has been in and out helping Kathy. Kinley's oxygen saturation has been really good, but that is mainly because she is receiving 100% oxygen from her ventilator. Her blood pressure also looks good, but she is now requiring 2 medications, epinephrine and dopamine, to help raise her BP.

During Kinley's first assessment of the night shift we all noticed that her abdominal drain was not holding its suction. This is a problem because it means that it will no longer suction any excess blood from her abdomen. Carrie called in Dr. O for a consultation on how to handle and Dr. O ended up calling surgery to see if someone could come up and check why it is not holding its suction. Dr. Y, from surgery, came to Kinley's bedside and with the help of Kathy took off all of Kinley's dressings. (Kevin snuck in a few pics of Kinley's "battle scars." Viewer Beware: they are posted below.) Dr. Y was able to do some tricky work and now Kinley's abdominal holds its suction again.

It is close to 10:00 pm now and Kinley has been keeping her O2 sats around 100%, so Kathy the nurse was able to turn down the percentage of oxygen coming from her ventilator. Kinley is now receiving 80% oxygen from her vent and is keeping her O2 saturation above 95%. Way to go Kinley! Our goal is to keep her O2 sats above 95%. Kinley has also been able to keep her CO2 down with the help of the high frequency vent.

Kevin and I plan to stay close to Kinley this evening and are hoping for a quiet night.