Okay I lied in the previous post, technically the babies aren’t 1 month old until Monday. I guess the doctors wait till 30 days for them to be one month. Doctors!
Cole’s sodium was kind of low so they ordered some labs on him. They are going to check his urine to see if he is just peeing it all out. I guess a premie’s kidneys typically work in one of two ways, either they flush everything out or nothing. I’m guessing he is just passing everything through his kidneys and not leaving the good stuff inside. He’s still pretty unstable with his breathing. They are going to start giving him inhalation steroids. We aren’t too happy about this but the doctors reassure us this is for the best. This is the best way for the steroids to get to the lungs and not affect the rest of the baby. There is a real debate now with the doctors and the nurses regarding treatment. There is mixed commentary in the medical community about babies and steroids. To be honest it’s almost a damned if you, damned if you don’t decision. There seems to be some real concern about getting these babies off the ventilators ASAP. If the inhaled roids don’t work, IV steroids are next on the list and that course of treatment is a little more scary for us.
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Happy one month birthday. My surviving trio are 4y3m and we had the steriod debate going on 4 yrs ago also. Honestly, inhaled steriods aren’t that bad. They don’t enter the blood stream so you aren’t getting the whole “we’re damaging the brain thing”. Our daughter did need the IV steriod decadron and we needed 3 different bursts to get her off the vent. Two of the dr’s were so opposed to it and the other 3 were of the opinion she would die from one of her lack of breathing events if we didn’t do something. She needed to be bagged about 10 times a day. Peep and pressures at the highest for her size and O2 ranged around 90-100%. When she had problems, we had no where to go. We didn’t do the decadron till around 8 wks though.
I hope Cole’s lungs start to improve and the inhaled steriods do the trick!
Gina
Hey - I was wondering about the one month thing, because I knew it was on the 7th they were born.
Keepnig finger crossed for Cole’s lungs!
Nikki
Almost every decision so far has been DIYD,DIYD.
Because if it works out for the best, and Cole becomes a big-time ball player, the papers will find this post, and then he’ll get kicked out of the League for Roid usage, and he’ll hate you. You see, it’s all connected.
Good luck…
How’d the US go? We won’t get one until Friday and I’m on pins & needles for SOME sort of US results.
I don’t know how much they have told you about the ventilators but the longer they are on oxygen the more chance they will develop ROP (an eye condition common in preemies). Our little guy was the last on any type of oxygen support and it is chalked up to the WWB syndrome (wimpy white boy). He even came home on oxygen to help him eat better. All three of ours had breathing treatments but I don’t think steroids were unvolved at all. I hope your nurses are making signs for their 1 month birthday!!!! I will continue to offer my support and experience with 24 weekers and I will continue to pray for your little ones.
Suzan
g/g/b born Aug. 21, 2005 24w3d
Zoe, Ella, Aidan