Sunday, July 13th - More Food, Less Flow

When I arrived I found Holly watching over our baby girl. I had missed rounds so Holly got me caught up on all of the changes for today. Kinley's continual feedings were increased at 9:00 am from 4 ccs per hour to 5 ccs per hour. The residual in her stomach from before this feeding change was zero ccs. Kinley must have been hungry this morning. Kinley's oxygen support is still at 21%, but the flow of oxygen through her nasal cannula has been lowered from 2 liters per minute to 1.5 liters per minute. And by looking at her numbers she is doing really well. She is consistently keeping her blood oxygen saturation in the 90s and it is mainly in the mid 90s. Since they have weaned both the methadone and ativan the past two days they are going to leave them alone today. The same goes for the erythromycin, no changes. Unfortunately Kinley did not have a poopy diaper yesterday or last night. Hopefully she will have one today or they will probably need to give her another glycerin suppository. Holly ends her update with some good news, Kinley was weighed again and as of 1:00 am last night she weighed 9 pounds 12 ounces. I do not know if this is a good weight gain for the amount of nutrition she is receiving, but at least she is gaining and not losing.

Continuing a good trend, Kinley's residual at 1:00 pm was only 0.5 ccs and her residual at 5:00 pm was a mere 1.5 ccs.

Yea!!! Mommy's here! Kathy arrived just before the evening shift change. This week was Kathy's first full week back at work and she has worked very hard to make sure and see Kinley every day. It has not been an easy week, but I know that it will definitely be worth it when Kathy can be there when Kinley is at home.

After Kathy arrives (and says hello to Kinley) and before the evening shift change Holly tells us that they will decrease Kinley's oxygen flow to 1 liter per hour over the night because she is doing so well at keeping her blood oxygen saturation up. Since Kinley still has not pooped though, they will keep her feedings at 5 ccs per hour until she does. They have ordered another glycerin suppository for tonight to help move things along. While Holly is telling us about Kinley's feedings and pooping, Kinley gets a very serious look and then turns her whole face red. We all joke that she was working on making a "dirty" diaper so she could get more food. As Kathy and I pack up our stuff to leave for the shift change Holly decides to go ahead and check out Kinley's diaper. Unfortunately for Holly, but great for Kinley, the diaper was full. Kinley had had an explosion in her pants. Man, I can't wait for when Kinley is at home and I get those dirty diapers all to myself. (In case you don't know me, there is a good bit of sarcasm in that last sentence.)

After shift change, at 9:00 pm, Kinley's residual is checked again and it comes back with 9 ccs. Janece, the night nurse, calls it in and they decide to continue Kinley's feedings at 5 ccs per hour. We leave around 9:45 pm. It is so hard to leave when Kinley is wide awake and so cute. Below are a few pics of Kinley from when we had to leave. It is so hard to leave when she is awake.