Day 15 - February 7, 2013

Day 15 saw some interesting things for both girls.  Both girls are on the conventional ventilators, and their blood oxygen saturations have been fluctuating quite a bit.  The medical team believes that these large fluctuations are being caused by both of their PDAs (heart murmurs), so their doctor decided to treat both of them with indomethacin.  They will each get 3 doses spaced 12 hours apart.

This will be Paige's second round of indomethacin.  As described in yesterday's post, her murmur is still pretty bad, so the hope is that another round of indomethacin will help.

This is Aubrey's first treatment with indomethacin.  As I described in previous posts, she was not initially treated due to her lung bleed on Day 2.  She is still bleeding a little bit in her lungs, but the doctor feels that the benefits of treating the PDA outweigh the bleeding risk.  In order to decrease the bleed risk, Aubrey was given fresh frozen plasma (the "watery" part of blood that contains clotting factors) and platelets (platelets are the framework of clots) before her first dose of indomethacin.

As a side note, the sooner indomethacin is given, the better it works.  The girls' doctor said that at this point, the indomethacin may not work all that well because the girls are now relatively old.  We'll have to wait and see....

Both girls received their breakfast of mommy's milk this morning, but they will not be getting milk while they're on the indomethacin.

Way too much text. Here's some random pictures.  This is Aubrey.  You can see the naso-gastric tube really well.  That's the tube that she gets her milk through.

You'll notice that number 17 next to her nostril.  That means the tube goes into her 17 cm (just over 6 and a half inches).  Crazy stuff.  This next pictures shows how dry Aubrey's skin is getting.

She's still under the lights to help decrease her bilirubin, so the nurses can't put any moisturizers on her.  That purple and blue butterfly-looking thing on her wrist is her PICC line.

This next picture is Paige screaming at the purple monster.

I'm sure this qualifies me for the worst father of the year award, but these pictures of Paige screaming at the purple monsters just make me laugh.  She's gonna hate Barney.  Here she is recovering eyes open after the purple monster attack.

The neurosurgeon stopped by today and examined Aubrey for a minute or two.  He doesn't think she'll need any treatment for the subdural fluid in her head.

That's about all I can remember about Day 15.