Today we got to met with the attending doctor over Baby Z. He brought us into a conference room and explained to us quite simply what was going on. It was wonderful. We feel like we understand so much more about what is going on. And most exciting, he gave us a name for Baby Z's symptoms. It may not seem like that big of a deal to have an official title for his symptoms, afterall, his treatments aren't going to change. But to us it was just one more huge piece of the puzzle we are trying to figure out. And so the name is "pulmonary hypertension." Look it up on WebMD if you want to. I'm not going to. It makes me too stressed and opens up too many doors. Right now we are just focusing on what the doctor told us and his explanations.
So we have a name, pulmonary hypertension, that is what Baby Z is being treated for. But we don't have a cause. That is what the CT Scan is needed for. There is a laundry list of possible causes so lets focus on what we do know. His little lungs just don't have the right pressure so they aren't drawing the blood into them, thus not enough oxygen is getting into his body. The treatment - blood pressure medication to try and balance out the pressures in his heart and lungs, and oxygen to increase his blood oxygen saturation. Makes sense, right?. Good news is that even healthy full-term babies have some adjusting to be made in the lung pressure during the first week of life and so since Baby Z is full term the docs expect to see some natural adjusting going on that will help his case. Now for the complicated part - the risks analysis. Apparently oxygen is toxic to the body at too high of levels. We normal functioning humans breath in about 21% oxygen. Baby Z has been breathing in around 100% oxygen the last few days to keep his oxygen saturation levels up. This is alright for a few days - few being defined as 8 or 9 for a newborn. However, after that, oxygen levels that high can actually do more damage to the lungs. So Baby Z is on day 6, he needs to be weened down and he needs to be weened down soon. Weening started today and it was aggressive. Baby Z was at 99% yesterday evening. Throughout the night he was weened to the low 70's. When we left this evening he was at 40%. The goal is 21% so we are on a great path but have a ways to go. But even then weening him from oxygen is just one step. He also needs to be weened from the nitrateoxygen (sp?) a special type of gas they are giving him which specifically helps the lungs open up. Then there is also the different pressures they are using with the ventilator to blow the oxygen into his lungs. All those need to be weened down too. This equals a few more hurdles to jump over before we can get him onto a traditional ventilator and into a CT Scan to find a cause, but for today we are just happy to have a name.
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