Tiger Mother

Another rough night: Ingrid’s breathing took a turn for the worse and there was talk of putting her on a ventilator. After much discussion, phone calls among doctors, and Kate putting her foot down that she would NOT spend another night holding her baby’s arms down they decided to use the nasal cannula to increase the pressure in Ingrid’s lungs. The problem is that she is taking shallow breaths and not filling her lungs. This has caused the lower lobes of her lungs to collapse a bit; all normal or at least expected say the doctors. So far this has regulated her breathing and kept her blood oxygen at or near 100%.

They took out her epidural last night, in part because it was coming out and leaking anyway. But they replaced the catheter/Foley bag because her urine output had dropped off. So now they can accurately measure her urine output (a good measure of how fluids are moving inside her) and can measure her bladder pressure to tell how much pressure is being put on the organs in her abdomen. The fear is that the pressure from organs begin forced back into her abdomen will limit or cutoff blood flow there.

And, after multiple sticks, bright lights, and ultrasounds looking for good veins she got another IV in her neck so she would have to be pricked again to draw blood for testing.

Dr. Barksdale was in early this morning to look at Ingrid’s incision and to remove the dressing in hopes that less tension on her chest would help her breathing. Her incision looks great. He left off most of the dressing so now she has only a smallish gauze pad held on by 2 long pieces of tape.

We’ve been told that day 2 or 3 after major surgery is when most patients start to turn towards recovery. At this point the pain team’s plan for pain management is working. Ingrid slept peacefully all morning.

With her pain fairly well managed, the biggest issue now is Ingrid’s breathing. She has been breathing with some forced air to keep pressure in her lungs. We’ve tried to wean her down from 5L at 60% pure O2 but it has been slow with setbacks. She didn’t tolerate going down to 40%, but was ok at 45%. She didn’t tolerate going down to 4L so they bumped her back up to 5L. De-sats continued frequently throughout the afternoon. In time she should be able to take full breaths on her own, but as of now she's having a rough time.

Tiger Mother Kate has not left the hospital since we arrived early Monday morning. She has been a forceful advocate for Ingrid and an invaluable member of her care team. And she was there when Ingrid broke everyone’s heart moaning, “Gaa gaa” (what she calls Kate.)