22 Sep Update
Good morning everyone,Keegan had a good night.
He spent it with his Oma reading lots of books. They said that he continues to have good urine output. They did say that his kidneys do need to do a better job of filtering. They are going to watch the levels this afternoon and depending on how his evening labs look they may start kidney dialysis through his peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheter. His transplant surgeon is still remaining very hopeful about his kidneys. If they do opt for the dialysis it would just be there to give him a good flush and to hopefully allow his kidneys to keep improving. The PD catheter dialysis is a little different than the typical dialysis that people normally hear about. This catheter is a direct line into the peritoneal. The peritoneal sack is a sealed off lining that holds the organs. They would fill that lining with a fluid that would help draw out the impurities. After it has had sometime to sit in there they drain the chemical out with all the impurities going with it. It typically isn’t the continuous dialysis that runs a person’s blood through an inline filter. With babies, they can not typically do the other type of dialysis because of their size and because their typical volume is too small.
They are also very pleased with his oxygen levels in his blood. They are going to start taking the nitric oxide from his ventilator. The nitric oxide is there to help stimulate the oxygen/blood interface in his lungs. His blood oxygen levels are holding in the high 90 % range after the first wean. They will continue to wean a little every few hours. He is still on about 60% Oxygen. When they are ready that will probably be one of the next things to come down.
They are also starting to wean him off some of his drugs. Two of the heart medications he is on are called dopamine and epinephrine. The dopamine is there to keep his blood pressure on the higher than normal side. They will begin to wean him off that first. The epinephrine is a lot like a adrenaline booster for his heart. It will make his heart a little snappier than normal.
Other than that his is even more lucid than he was yesterday. His is with his mom right now in the room. Much to Maddie’s dismay I set them up to watch College Game Day on ESPN and then put the remote out of reach. The way I look at it… it is never too early to introduce a boy to football. =)
Everyone have a great day and we will keep the reports coming. (All in all it should be a quiet weekend with nothing really new happening until Monday). Get some rest and we will keep posting.
Take care,Gray