Atelectasis

Ok one of the nurses just filled me in on everything. The doctors filled me in on some stuff earlier but they didn't explain everything well enough. Apparently he has some atelectasis in his left lung. This as some of you may know, is a collapse of part of or all of the lung, this can be caused by pressure, which they told me was the cause of the problem, they just didn't tell me the name of the problem. With him it is only part of the lung, and it is a very small part. So we have been doing deep breathing exercises and tonight they ordered a breathing treatment via what I believe is a Bipap machine. It pushes air into his lungs, forcing him to expand his lungs and then to slow his breathing. He has been breathing very fast. RT said that they should see some improvements in a few treatments and he will be getting 10 minute treatments every 4-6 hours. They also want him lying on his right side to help the left side re-expand. I have been worried about this happening because he has been so distended from the steroids and I tried to get him to breath deep and move around which will help prevent it, but he just wasn't really having it, and he has been even less active while in the hospital because he hurts so much, and when he has the fever he feels even worse. I can only get him to do so much. Lately he has been looking at me like I'm stupid every time I talk to him, and not answering me. He just looks at me and closes his eyes when I speak to him! lol So anytime he speaks I get excited, and I know that when he starts talking more I will know he is truly feeling better.

Tonight he is looking much better. He has good color and has been fever free for about 15 1/2 hours now. Which is great! And he seems to be sleeping more comfortably now. Every night I have been waking up to him moaning, which is very hard to hear from your baby. They gave him some medicine to help with the gas earlier and he can have that every 6 hours. We don't know how much it will help because C-diff produces a lot of gas, but we are hoping that it might. Also they are going to start doing abdominal girth measurements to see how much he is distended and to be able to monitor better if he is improving.

Those are the only updates for right now. It's been a crazy day, lets hope tomorrow is much milder and will bring great improvements. Please keep praying that he heals quickly.