It’s like watching grass grow

Dr. Stewart is full of clever sayings.

The nurse is setting up Logan’s transfusion right now.  He will get a total of 60 cc of blood (about 12 teaspoons).  He’s O positive.  He’ll have to be sure to donate when he gets old enough.

Dr. Stewart came in and gave me some more details this morning.  Logan is still in an electrolyte imbalance.  They are going to keep giving him potassium (through his feeding tube) and magnesium (through his central line).

They have switched the nebulizer from constant to every two hours!  That’s progress!

The lasix (diuretic) is working well to pull off the extra fluid.  He is in a negative fluid balance right now.  They are going to continue the lasix to try to get some more fluid off, but they also need to keep an eye on his blood pressure.

He is still on two antibiotics to fight the bacterial infection.  Since he has been on them for a few days, they are going to finish a seven day regimen.  Even though the cultures came back negative, we don’t want to stop the antibiotics and give the bad bacteria a chance to come back.

As Logan continues to improve and the X-rays continue to show improvement, Dr. Stewart wants to start weaning him off the ventilator.  He has warned me that it will be a long process.  He has to slowly adjust one aspect of the ventilator and see how Logan responds, then adjust it again and see how he responds and keep doing that until he can remove the tube.

Once it is time to extubate, Dr. Stewart will give him a steroid to make sure his airway doesn’t swell shut when they remove the tube.  Right now, the tube is keeping it open, so they want to minimize the possibility that the tube would ever have to go back in.