Day 2 - October 14, 2013
After my first night back in the house (I had somewhat forgotten that walls could have colors other than white and beds could be soft and not move up and down at the touch of a button) we called into the NICU to get an update on Logan to see how he did during his second night. The nurse on staff filled us in that Logan had had a pretty rough night and morning with the recovery he was still going through from them trying to change his breathing method. Also, the doctors had ordered for 3 different specialists to come in and look at Logan to see how he was progressing. The Cardiologist (heart), the Opthamologist (eyes) and the Neurologist (brain). I will address each of these below shortly and what we found out...
We let the nurse know we were planning on coming in for touch time and would see her soon. When we got there we were able to hold his hand and grip his feet a little bit and give him as much love and support possible. We both felt that the swelling in his head and some of the bruising had gone down just since we had last seen him so every day is making progress! His blood pressure was still a little off and they informed us that on top of the 2 transfusions he got yesterday that they also had to order him some platelets, which would be coming in later today. They had to give him some medicine for his respiratory issues while we were there so they asked us if we could step out for a couple minutes while they finished that procedure.
This gave us an opportunity to meet up with some of my favorite nurses who took such great care of me while I was in Antepartum and let them know what was going on since they had been off for the weekend. We also had a visit from the patient care lady at the NICU who reviewed a lot of great resources we could use to help better understand what was going on and a bit more of the process we should expect. It was very helpful to get some more information and better understand what we need to do on both the insurance and information side of things.
Cardiologist - When we went back in we were lucky to find out that the Cardiologist had just started checking Logan out so we could watch the procedure and get the information straight from the source. The reason he was called in was one of the nurses was worried that he had a bit of a murmur so they wanted to check to be sure. The Cardiologist was doing an ultrasound of his heart and was able to show us exactly how it was working. According to him, everything seemed to be moving and working as expected. There was no murmur and the only thing that we needed to keep an eye on is the artery that feeds the umbilical cord had not closed up yet (very normal in preemies as their brain hasn't registered to do it yet or their muscles weren't strong enough). However, everything was functioning fine and he did not see any issues with that but we will just keep our eye on it and hopefully he will fix that on his own.
After meeting with the cardiologist, Logan looked exhausted and we knew he needed to get his rest so we went headed out for the day. I wanted to be sure he got as much rest as possible and called off any visitors for the rest of the day, knowing he still had 2 more specialists coming in to see him later as well!
We called this evening to get an update and the nurse said the Opthamologist was looking at him as we spoke and that the Neurologist had been there earlier.
Neurologist - She didn't have much to tell us and we should get more details tomorrow but from what she was told there was nothing that concerned the Neurologist and that he didn't see anything too out of the normal. He will have another scan on Friday (which is routine) where they will look for brain bleeds which can happen with preemies but if that goes well, there is a chance that by Saturday we might have our baby in our arms!!
Besides that she said he was doing really well, his oxygen was at 23%, you and I are at 21% so he was getting back to where he was the night before, now lets just hope that after a couple of days his nose cooperates and will allow us to move to the less invasive method of ventilation.
Opthamologist - The Opthamologist gave us a call shortly after talking to the nurse to fill us in on what he found out. He said that his right eye was ok and looked normal for a premature baby, however there is some bleeding in his left eye (which was why the Neonatalogist called him in to begin with). The blood is between the pupil and cornea and we believe this is an issue due to him being pressed against my pelvis wall for so long (same side we are having issues with his nose). He said it very likely could clear over time with drops of the next week and from what he could see there are no complications as of now. He also did an ultrasound of his eye to check on the retina and said that that looked ok. He said for the time being we will need to have him sitting up a bit more (for now he had just been laying on his side) to help keep the blood flow down. He will be back on Thursday to see how it is doing but hopefully with some drops and steroids we will get his eye all cleared up.
2 days down, fingers crossed we continue to make more great progress tomorrow!!
We let the nurse know we were planning on coming in for touch time and would see her soon. When we got there we were able to hold his hand and grip his feet a little bit and give him as much love and support possible. We both felt that the swelling in his head and some of the bruising had gone down just since we had last seen him so every day is making progress! His blood pressure was still a little off and they informed us that on top of the 2 transfusions he got yesterday that they also had to order him some platelets, which would be coming in later today. They had to give him some medicine for his respiratory issues while we were there so they asked us if we could step out for a couple minutes while they finished that procedure.
This gave us an opportunity to meet up with some of my favorite nurses who took such great care of me while I was in Antepartum and let them know what was going on since they had been off for the weekend. We also had a visit from the patient care lady at the NICU who reviewed a lot of great resources we could use to help better understand what was going on and a bit more of the process we should expect. It was very helpful to get some more information and better understand what we need to do on both the insurance and information side of things.
Cardiologist - When we went back in we were lucky to find out that the Cardiologist had just started checking Logan out so we could watch the procedure and get the information straight from the source. The reason he was called in was one of the nurses was worried that he had a bit of a murmur so they wanted to check to be sure. The Cardiologist was doing an ultrasound of his heart and was able to show us exactly how it was working. According to him, everything seemed to be moving and working as expected. There was no murmur and the only thing that we needed to keep an eye on is the artery that feeds the umbilical cord had not closed up yet (very normal in preemies as their brain hasn't registered to do it yet or their muscles weren't strong enough). However, everything was functioning fine and he did not see any issues with that but we will just keep our eye on it and hopefully he will fix that on his own.
After meeting with the cardiologist, Logan looked exhausted and we knew he needed to get his rest so we went headed out for the day. I wanted to be sure he got as much rest as possible and called off any visitors for the rest of the day, knowing he still had 2 more specialists coming in to see him later as well!
We called this evening to get an update and the nurse said the Opthamologist was looking at him as we spoke and that the Neurologist had been there earlier.
Neurologist - She didn't have much to tell us and we should get more details tomorrow but from what she was told there was nothing that concerned the Neurologist and that he didn't see anything too out of the normal. He will have another scan on Friday (which is routine) where they will look for brain bleeds which can happen with preemies but if that goes well, there is a chance that by Saturday we might have our baby in our arms!!
Besides that she said he was doing really well, his oxygen was at 23%, you and I are at 21% so he was getting back to where he was the night before, now lets just hope that after a couple of days his nose cooperates and will allow us to move to the less invasive method of ventilation.
Opthamologist - The Opthamologist gave us a call shortly after talking to the nurse to fill us in on what he found out. He said that his right eye was ok and looked normal for a premature baby, however there is some bleeding in his left eye (which was why the Neonatalogist called him in to begin with). The blood is between the pupil and cornea and we believe this is an issue due to him being pressed against my pelvis wall for so long (same side we are having issues with his nose). He said it very likely could clear over time with drops of the next week and from what he could see there are no complications as of now. He also did an ultrasound of his eye to check on the retina and said that that looked ok. He said for the time being we will need to have him sitting up a bit more (for now he had just been laying on his side) to help keep the blood flow down. He will be back on Thursday to see how it is doing but hopefully with some drops and steroids we will get his eye all cleared up.
2 days down, fingers crossed we continue to make more great progress tomorrow!!
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