Update6.page

Corey's Updates

(Sorry if there is some confusion with what is said in some of the updates. Some of the terms and more background information will be explained in a different section at a later time.)

4/20-4/22

Previous Updates

6/13/02 - (1:00pm) Corey has been doing better the last couple of days. His oxygen requirements have been the upper 30's to the lower 40's. They had to increase his ventilator settings yesterday because he was not tolerating the weaning. The cultures taken Monday came back negative except for the MRSA (as expected). The eye doctor came today and stated that Corey has Stage I Retinopathy of Prematurity. What this means is that there is some abnormal growth of the retina at this time. Stage I is the mildest form of ROP and if Corey's eyes remain at this stage, they will likely repair themselves. The doctor will be back in week to check his eyes again. Amy gave Corey a bath today and he seemed to enjoy it.

6/18/02 - (3:00pm) Corey has been doing better the last couple of days. His oxygen requirements have consistently been in the mid thirties. During the weekend, his ventilator settings had to be increased again. They did start weaning again the last couple of days though. They gave him a bigger tube for his lungs on Sunday and increased his feedings to 35cc every three hours. He has been tolerating the feeding increase well. They weighed him last night and he was 4lbs 1oz.

6/19/02 - (10:00pm) Corey has been doing good today. Not much has changed, but he is looking good and big. We have been able to hold him a lot more and he has been doing very well the holdings. We did want to tell everyone that we are sorry about the longer amounts of time between some updates. The reason for the longer times is that we are spending more time with Corey and it is making some long days. He has also gone through some time were he does not have much that changes. The doctors are kind of just waiting for him to come off the ventilator. This is all very good and we are excited that he is doing better. There is still a long road ahead and he will be in the hospital a while yet. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.

We also wanted to let you all know that we have changed phone companies and now have new phone numbers. Please send us quick email if you would like our new numbers. Just put something like "Phone" in the email and we will send it to you. We just did not want to post it on the internet, because you never know who might get it.

6/21/02 - (10:00pm) Corey has not been doing as well the last couple of days. Yesterday during the day he had a bad desaturation that he recovered from pretty well. He generally desaturates the oxygen in his blood when he moves or cries, because it uses all of his energy so his bad lungs cannot handle it. Last night, he did not move at all and he had a severe desaturation. The nurses used a special device (called bagging) to try to bring him back up but he was not responding at first. He eventually came up with the bagging and was fine. Corey has had a couple of similar (though less severe) episodes this evening. The doctor states that these episodes are BPD spells and they can best be understood as being similar to asthma attacks. Please pray that he stops dropping like that. Although he is fine once he comes back up, it is still very scary for us.

Corey is doing well in the other areas of his health. He is up to 38cc every three hours in his feedings and he is up to 4lbs. 2.6oz.

6/23/02 - (10:00pm) Corey has been doing about the same the last couple of days. He has continued to do the saturation drops. Today they noticed that he did the saturation drops during his aerosol treatment for his lungs. The doctor stopped this treatment to see if it might be contributing to the problem. Corey was weighed this morning and he is up to 4lbs. 6oz.

6/27/02 - (10:00pm) Corey had been doing the same saturation drops Monday through Wednesday. Today he has not had any of those drops and seems to be doing better. The doctor turned down some of Corey's vent settings today to see how he would respond. He seemed to respond well. The eye doctor was in this week and said that some of Corey's blood vessels in his eye have Stage I ROP and others are Stage II. They will continue to watch Corey's eye growth. Corey's oxygen requirements have remained in the 30's to 40's this week. Jason got to hold Corey on his chest tonight. Both of them really enjoyed this type of holding. Pictures will be posted later.

6/30/02 - (10:00pm) Corey had been doing better the last couple of days. He has not been having his big saturation drops. The doctors have been able to turn down the number of breaths a minute he has been getting. This is a good thing, because it make him work more on his own. They have changed his vent from 40 breaths/min down to 20 breaths/min. This has been done in increments of 5 over the last few days. He has done very well with the changes and if he keeps it up he might get his chance to come off the vent. That will be a great day. The doctors do say even if they try him off the vent, he has a good chance of going back on it. They say most babies will do good for a day or two and then get tired and stop breathing like they should and have to go back on the vent. We still don't know when that will be, but we will still keep praying that it will be soon.

7/1/02 - (10:00pm) Corey has been doing very well today. They turned his vent rate down to 10 breaths\minute. He was weighed this morning and he was 4 lbs. 14.1 oz! Tonight, they are going to try to take him off of the ventilator and put him on a nasal cannula (which will deliver oxygen, but not breaths). We are very excited and nervous about it. We will update in the morning concerning his progress and whether he was able to stay off of the vent.

7/2/02 - (4:30pm) They did not end up trying Corey off of the ventilator last night because the doctor had to go to a delivery. They did, however, try to take him off this morning. It was unsuccessful. Corey tried very hard to breathe, but as soon as they took the tube out his airway collapsed. They gave him steriods yesterday to reduce the swelling. The doctor said that the airway may have collapsed because of swelling. They are giving him two more doses of steriods today to reduce swelling and they will try to take him off again tomorrow. If the doctor determines that swelling is not the problem, then Corey may have a Bronchoscopy done to examine his airway for problems.