This afternoon the doctors and nurses extubated Amelia. So far so good, she handled her extubation a LOT better then the last time they extubated her. Amelia is still on the steroids and will be getting weaned off of them, that will be the true test is when she is completely off the steroids. So as of right now we are taking it one day at a time, praying that she doesn't get too tired from breathing on her own and that we don't have to intubate her so she can get bigger and stronger.
January 23rd
It's been almost 24 hours since they extubated Amelia. I spent the night in Amelia's room to be close to her and she did well though the night. She didn't have many alarms until the nurse got in to check on her and change her diaper. Early this morning the nurses took she nasal prongs out and switched it with a face mask for preemies. She loves being on her tummy and not being touched, which is common in baby's her size right after extubate because she is working so hard to breath on her own with the help from the machine. But we are really proud of her and how far she has come. She as been a little bit more alarmy this late morning early afternoon, could be do to the fact that she's getting tired from breathing more on her own. The nurses have turned the oxygen level on the machine up to give her more help. I know if God can get Amelia this far and get her through the first day she will continue to get strong and be that much closer to breathing on her own.
As of 8 pm tonight the night nurse was checking on Amelia changing her diaper, checking her vitals when Amelia decided she was tired and had enough of the breathing on her own. The great thing is that Amelia lasted 30 hours this time around. After getting intubated Amelia's vitals all looked good.
January 24
After the exciting night before and getting intubated again, this morning Amelia was doing great she wasn't as tired from being extubated like she was two weeks ago when they extubated her. The doctors did stop her feed Monday night after she was intubated, just to be on the safe side to not agitated her stomach with whatever air that might be in her stomach as well. But over all she had a good day, until 8 pm when she had another episode where her body clamps down and she can't open her air ways by herself. The nurses had to help Amelia out a little bit.
January 25
From looking at her x-rays, along with sucking mucus out of her, did her medical team decided to start breathing treatments to help break that mucus up that's in her lungs making it hard to breath. They will be doing those treatments every 8 hours until they feel like they have gotten most all the build up out. The nurses started Ameila's feeds again starting her out on 1.0ml/hour. With that the doctors will increase her feeds depending on how she tolerating it.
January 26
After doing Amelia's breathing treatment for a day now she really enjoys them. The respiratory therapist (RT) has gotten a lot of mucus out of her lungs with the treatments along with moving her every 2 to 4 hours so that the mucus doesn't settle in her lungs. Doing the treatments seems to be helping with her breathing. Yes, she still has some alarms but she has been recovering on her own without the help of the nurse or the machine.
January 27-31
The last hand full of days around here have been fairly uneventful. After the start to the week uneventful is a pleasant change of pace! Amelia has been switched to an auto-ween vent setting that automatically adjusts to her needs and weens her down as she's ready. With this system her alarms have become less frequent and less severe. She doesn't desat as low and she's able to come out of them on her own. Over the last couple days we got he worked back up to full feeds and we are patiently waiting to see some growth. Her weight gain is back and forth right now, At one point we saw her get all the way up to 1lb 12.6 oz. We'd like to see a little better growth at this point, but we'll take what we can get.
