February 5, 2010

Thursday was a big day for Becky and Bill...it was their first sit-down meeting with the Doctor and the medical team. The majority of the time was spent talking about Will's grade IV brain bleed and the next steps...I will try and do a synopsis as best as I can.

Half of the babies who have Will's severity of brain bleed get some blood clotting in the brain which requires draining. Of that half, half won't be able to drain and will cause brain swelling. If that occurs, they will do a spinal tap for three days in a row and do a catscan each day to see if draining is occurring. If draining still does not occur, he will be transferred to John Hopkins for nuero surgery. It's still possible that even if he beats all these odds, he could still have cognitive or motor skill impairments...or he could have some impairment which never surfaces. His severity of brain bleed is critical, so the Dr. just wanted to make sure Mom and Dad were aware of the possible next steps ahead so nothing comes as too much of a surprise.

Will is also back on the ventilator (intubated)...he just started having too many Brady's and he was tiring himself out trying to breathe on the CPAP. When Mom saw him on Thursday, he was sleeping comfortably and soundly. It was also found yesterday that Will has an infection in his blood (staph infection). The infection usually grows on the central line he has. To treat this, he is going on a course of antibiotics. After the course of antibiotics, he will be tested to ensure the infection is gone. If it's gone, they will take his central line out and hopefully will be able to keep it out due to being on such large doses of milk and not needing the line anymore for his VPN (vitamin drip). He's off the billi light for now but had no kangaroo time yesterday due to going back on the ventilator and needing some rest.

Tenley doesn't have much change. There will hopefully be a spot available in her room in the next week or so...maybe they will both be in the same room by the end of the month! Last night, she got to have some kangaroo time with her Daddy. She spends a lot of her free time trying to pull off the CPAP from her face. She still gets very fussy when she's moved around too much and her stats go down until they finally leave her be. She will soon be on a full feeding and will not need the VPN drip anymore at that point.