Friday, August 27, 2010

Olivia - update

More detailed explanation

Posted 5 hours ago
So here's more details as to whats happened yesterday and today. Yesterday all was well. Her blood gases looked great, she had been breathing above the vent since she was in PICU, heart rate and oxygen saturations were awesome, so they felt it was ok to extubate. They did this around 10pm or so and after she was extubated it was clear she had swelling in her airway. Because of the swelling, she couldn't breathe off the correct amount of carbon dioxide. Her ph levels dropped and her co2 levels were quite elevated which meant she became acidotic. The last time she was acidotic she had her two codes so they took this as an emergency, which it was.
The whole night she was thrashing around and in a lot of pain. There were certain pain meds she could not be given because they effect her ability to breathe on her own. They tried several breathing treatments and something called a high flow nasal cannula (oxgen tube in nose) but when nothing was helping her breathe they had to reintubate this morning.
She is being given steroids for 24 hours prior to them trying to extubate again. She has to stay calm and still in order for the swelling to go down so they have kept her under sedation and paralyzed all day. They will try to ween her tomorrow from the vent as long as everything goes well.
She had a wire that was reading pressures in her heart and lungs and they removed that today. It was stitched so they removed the stitches then pulled the wire. They had to keep her under close obervation for one hour becaause problems can arise where they need to take her back to the OR but she was fine.
They started feeding her pediasure via NG tube so I'm sure her tummy is happy about that :) Thanks again for your kind messages on her carepage. I read every single one and they keep me going so thank you.

3 comments:

Lyndsay said...

Ugh. I can't even imagine your feelings as you go through this ordeal. :( Poor Olivia and poor Mommy.

Lyndsay said...

I *just* realized these posts weren't about your daughter. I really need to read more thoroughly. :)

Larissa: said...

That's ok! Thankfully she is doing amazingly well :-)