A few new setbacks, but some PDA progress.

Sorry it has been a couple days since my last post. Thursday night as I was getting ready to blog, we received a call from the hospital and Dr. Martin informed us that one of Charlie's lungs had collapsed. His blood gas had been good after the ventilator adjustments hwere made on Wednesday, but he had another bad blood gas out of nowhere on Thursday afternoon. They gave him a chest X-ray, which confirmed that one of his lungs had collapsed (approximately 20%). Dr. Martin said they were switching him to a new ventilator and that sometimes was enough to fix the collapsed lung. After a few hours on the "jet" ventilator, no improvement had been made and the doctors used a chest tube to relieve the pressure on the lung.

The chest tube worked as it was supposed to and should come out in the next day or two. Since its initial insertion the tube has not shown anymore signs of air escaping, which is a good sign that the hole in the lung that caused the problem has already healed. Dr. Martin had explained to Shannon in detail earlier on Thursday that they really wanted to do everything they could to get Charlie off the ventilators as soon as possible because they are very hard on the lungs. So, the lung collapse later in the day was definitely an unwanted setback, but it is somewhat par for the course with very premature babies that have to be on ventilators. The ventilator is a necessary evil at the moment, because while they it is hard on the lungs, it is the only thing keeping Charlie breathing.

Another less than great development today is that one of Charlie's cultures did come back positive, which means there is some bacteria present in the PICC line (his arterial iv line). The culture that came from the arm opposite the PICC line did not have any bacteria present, but either way the doctors have decided to start him on a round of antibiotics to stave off any infection.

Ok, so finally some good news. The most recent echo cardiogram has classified Charlie's PDA as "tiny", which is good enough to have him taken off the antibiotics and delay surgery for the time being. The assumption is that the PDA is on its way to closing and the plan for now is just to watch for signs that it may be getting larger again (and repeat the echo cardiogram as necessary).

In summary, Charlie's lung collapse is proving to be just a minor setback, but frightening nonetheless. The ibuprofen has done what I am calling a "90%" job on his PDA. And he may have an infection, but they are treating it ahead of time. So, he's back to being stable for now after a few more bumps in the road. Stay tuned...