Today it took us a while to get to Kinley's bedstation since we stopped by the ECMO room first, probably out of habit. Once we did make it to Kinley's room we found Andrea caring for her. Andrea told us that Kinley was doing really well and she was able to wean Kinley's oxygen a little. (Kinley was actually getting 41% oxygen from the vent when we arrived, which is more than yesterday, but she had to have her oxygen increased after the big move.) Now that the move is over she is back on track and is tolerating the wean well. We also noticed that Andrea changed Kinley's bedding. Kinley looked really settled in to her new room.
Around 2:00 pm Kinley had a blood gas test. She had great numbers, especially her CO2, so Delores, Kinley's neonatal nurse practitioner (NNP) was able to change some vent settings for Kinley. She also decreased the amount of nitrous oxide that Kinley was receiving from her vent. An hour and a half later Andrea drew another blood gas test which showed that Kinley was tolerating the changes well. By the time Kevin and I left today Kinley was back down to 30% oxygen from the vent and was holding her numbers strong. Yeah!!
Now for the "where did we go wrong" part of the post. Kevin and I have only been parents for about a month now and already we have a child on methadone. This is actually not bad at all, and is a good sign. The doctors and nurses have decided that it is time to start to wean Kinley off her morphine. Since she is on a really high dose of morphine it will take a long time to wean her and we have been told that Kinley will have withdrawal symptoms such as sweating and vomiting. I am not looking forward to seeing Kinley having to go through that, but she needed the high amount of morphine to get her to where she is today, so I am thankful it was there when she needed it. In order to wean Kinley off morphine, she has been started on methadone. Methadone is a medication that is easier to wean off of, so as the morphine is decreased, the methadone will be increased until Kinley gets to a point where she can be weaned off of the methadone. Kinley had her first dose of methadone today and will get a dose every 6 hours. Her morphine was dropped from 190 to 150, which is a pretty big drop, so hopefully she will tolerate it pretty well.
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5 comments:
Sounds like Kinley is on the right track. Keep up the good work Kinley!
Way to go Kinley, you're making such big steps in recovery! It's like to want to go home or something ;-) The narcotic withdrawals are definitely hard to watch, but it's over fairly quickly, and compared to what you all have been through, you can certainly handle it. As always, many prayers for Kinley and her Mommy & Daddy!
The Millers
It sounds like Kinley is doing well! You all are constantly in my thoughts and prayers.
HAPPY 1 MONTH B-DAY!!!! :)
I'm glad she's doing this well. I hope they can quit all the meds soon so she can go home with you.
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