February 3rd, 2010

Another long day up in the NICU. Kierson is certainly getting better with her breathing. She remains on the ventilator and according to her neonatologist will probably continue on this for the next few days. He doesn't want to rush anything. Although her CXR looks much improved (the pulmonary edema has cleared, but the damaged lungs remain unchanged), it was noted on the xray that some loops of small bowel appear suspicious for necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).

Hearing this possibility this morning made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This can get bad (as I remember from reading about it in medical school), causing dead bowel requiring surgical resection. There is a spectrum of NEC according to our neonatalogist. Mild to severe. If this is the beginning of NEC, we hope that this will only be a "mild" case of it since Kierson has been on antibiotics for four days now that would normally handle the most likely culprits. We must wait and see.

The good news is that her tummy remains soft, she continues to have bowel movements and is no longer having bilious gastric aspirates (essentially, no signs of obstruction or bowel dysfunction...). The downside is that her neonatologist says "no more tube feeds (ie, no more breast milk) for the next 7 days" to see what her bowels do (to see if this is NEC or not). She is back on TPN (total parenteral nutrition) through a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) in her tiny little arm. This means that overall growth will probably slow down as compared to what she was doing on tube feeds with breast milk. This is NOT what we want. We need her to continue to grow and put on weight as the growth brings new lung tissue (this will help with the primary problem of having damaged premature lungs).

So, the unpleasant NICU journey continues. Just as we thought we were getting past the recent infection with Proteus and E. coli (they just reported the E. coli in the tracheal aspirate culture today) that caused her to stop breathing requiring re-intubation, we are faced with the possibility of significant morbidity from the NEC.

We continue to be encouraged by other couples who have similar micro-preemies in the NICU undergoing similar but different complications. We also are greatly encouraged by the kind words and prayers of our family and friends. We don't see the end in sight, yet. We are being prepared for a very long road (hasn't this been long enough?...) by our neonatalogist...of course, we hope he's wrong.

Please pray for Deitre as this has been an extremely stress filled day for her.