7/29/06: Day 15 (Sat.) PDA Treatment Started

Although Evan celebrated his 2-week birthday yesterday, he is 33 weeks (adjusted gestational age) as of today...so getting closer to that 40-week full-term target age. We had a good talk with his resident (Andrea) today, but were bummed to hear she will be shifting over to TMC in a week or so. The residents switch locations every 30 days. She assured us the resident taking her place will be fully informed of Evan's condition.

Evan was even more fidgety today than we had seen him in the past. The nurse thinks that he's reached that tolerance point for the Fentanyl and is starting to feel things a bit more. They bumped up his dosage to get him to settle down a bit more. They also took an upper-body x-ray to make sure his PIC line is in the correct location after his nurse noticed that when she touched the area on his arm where the PIC line is, he became more agitated. The x-ray came back with no indication that his line was out of place, so he was just not a happy guy today! He kept opening his mouth wide like he was trying to yawn (or trying to get that respirator tube out).

They started him on the medication to help close his PDA problem. He'll get that medication over the course of three days. We'll know more on Tuesday when they do an ultrasound on his chest. The ultrasound will be able to tell if the medication worked or if he has to have the PDA ligation surgery. He did get a little blood transfusion today since his platelet counts were down a bit. Although he's A+ like both T and I are, he gets O- blood during the transfusion.

We had a good long visit with him today. I got to take his temperature and change his diaper again. Most of the time T and I had our hands on him trying to get him to settle down, but it didn't work too well. Hopefully tomorrow we can get an updated picture of him to post. :-)

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UMc Charges: $7,680.65
Running Total: $163,010.09
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