Progress Update 07/26/13

Well, Alyse's first week went very well.  Things seemed almost perfect.  However, we were warned over and over again that things would not continue to go that smoothly.  Then, yesterday & today, a lot of small things have started to go in the wrong direction.

They have had to increase her oxygen levels to around 50%, where she had been in the 20% range.  Because of her change in attempts to breathe on her own, they have increased the number of breaths from the ventilator from 35 breaths per minute to 50 breaths per minute.  She was taken off of her blood pressure medicine a few days ago because she was regulating it on her own, but today she had to go back on the meds to raise her blood pressure.  Her PDA (blood vessel in the heart that is supposed to close after birth but often doesn't with young preemies) has gotten larger, and today a heart murmur can be heard when listening to her when that wasn't the case before.  Her platelet count has dropped.  They think that she might have a fungal infection (possibly caused by the antibiotics she was on) & have done a culture, but it could be several days before we know for sure what is going on there.  There's a chance that the vast majority of these things are being caused by some sort infection, whether it be fungal or bacterial.

It's a different world in the NICU.  There's so much going on all the time, & it's so hard to understand even a portion of what is going on...

Please pray that they will figure out exactly what is happening with Alyse so that they can treat her with the correct meds as soon as possible.