We have a confirmed bug!

Hi family/friends!

We've had a pretty productive past couple of days! Ethan has been able to be weaned down to 30% oxygen from 65% and 12 PEEP from 14. His SIMV was also taken down to 10 from 22. His chest x-ray this morning was also remarkably improved.

They did a scan of his right lung (the problematic one) last night to check for fluid and he had maybe 1.5-2cm of fluid. They decided to not do a lung tap and continue on with the lasix for the excess fluid in his body. So far today, that has been working.

As the title says, the bug has been identified in his lung; and, it's a SUPERBUG! Because everything Ethan does is super! haha... he has >100,000 CFU's Acinetobacter baumannii. He was on Zosyvn  and Vancomycin, but infectious disease wanted to discontinue those and switch to Meropenem, but I had to remind them that Ethan is allergic to meropenem so ID went back to keeping him on the Zosyn.

Update on all of the other fun jazz:

• heart rate
• Still elevated, but nothing to worry about. He is fighting a pretty major infection
• oxygen
• As stated above, he's down to 30% and 12 PEEP (I think they are going to try to decrease the PEEP overnight)
• temperature
• Still low-grade, but nothing worrisome considering everything he's fighting
• blood pressure
• he went from low bp to much higher- his MAP is 100 right now, but they tell me a higher bp is better than a low
• urination
• peeing well, but still has the foley
• bleeding
• minimal
• swelling
• SO MUCH BETTER! His hand is still puffy from the infiltration it suffered the other day, but even that is getting better. 
• feeding
• we upped his rate to 100mL/hr from 80mL/hour. This gives him all of his same nutrition in a 24 hour period that he did prior to surgery.
• extubation
• possibly Tuesday or Wednesday. We have a lot to accomplish over the next day and a half to even think of that as a possibility for Tuesday.

He seems to be trying to wake up a lot more which means more sedatives to keep him asleep, but that also comes with withdrawal risk when the time comes in the next few days to extubate.

Scott brought Cora up to the hospital tonight so I could see her. We aren't allowing her in the PICU right now because we just don't think it's something she needs to see, but I was able to eat with her in the Ronald McDonald Room and snuggle for a little over an hour. I sure do miss my baby girl! 

Until next update...