Day 17

8/18/16

It looks like although Wren is still getting steadily better, the pneumonia in her lungs has left a good amount of dead lung tissue in areas the doctor called blebs.  These basically leave empty spaces that air can enter as it follows the path of least resistance as it comes in the lungs, and can cause bulges and consequently damage to surrounding tissue.  It also may make it harder for her to breathe on the ventilator, and I understand that she will have permanent damage from the infection as well.  We're not sure what that means exactly yet other than it's likely that when she comes home with us she might need to have oxygen treatment for some time.  She finally got to eat some more food today, which is good.  It looks like the infection in her blood at least has cleared out at the moment, which is good, because they are running out of space to give her IVs, and needed to insert another PIC line, which they wait to do until they are comfortable that the infection is clear from the blood.  When the infection first hit and caused a septic situation where her blood pressure dropped fairly dramatically, it looks like she had a shortage of oxygen to the brain for a bit of time, which may have caused some damage.  They think she may have seized yesterday, but it's really not clear.  I'm probably painting a bleak picture here, I think that all things considered she is on the way back up.

Avery continues to show progress as well.  They still are not sure whether she has an infection, but it did appear that she at least was growing bacteria from the same family as what Wren had in the breathing tube.  All tubing has of course been replaced so they can ensure they're not reinfecting with the medical equipment.  She has kept growing about an ounce a day or a little less, and has also been taking a tiny amount of food.  The immediate challenge she is facing is that her PDA (heart murmur) is somewhat loud and could start causing her problems.  The neoprofin hasn't done anything for her yet just like it didn't for Wren.  Before they resolve it with a ligation surgery, though, the doctor today is recommending that we try her on one separate drug first.  Apparently there has been some amount of studying done recently with using oral Tylenol to treat premies with PDAs, and what the research shows is something like 50% of babies like ours are able to close the duct all the way or at least enough of the way to resolve symptoms after using the drug.  Wren will likely be able to get that as well provided she gets feeling good enough to take on a new drug in the next day or two.