The doctors have been warning us from the beginning that babies born with CDH go through many phases during the first couple of weeks of life. A real roller coaster of ups and downs. After a good first day, Linc gave us our first real scare yesterday when his oxygen levels dropped dramatically. The doctors say that the real threat of pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs) usually starts to show up after about 24 hrs of life. Linc was right on time.
Within a short time, Linc's new room was filled with nurses, neonatologists, and surgeons. The room was a buzz as they discussed options to help Linc take in more oxygen. The word ECMO was brought up to Dan and me so we were really concerned. After trying several things over the course of a few hours, they were able to get him stabilized on a new med that gets pumped into his ventilator to relax the blood vessels. Once he was stable for over an hour, they decided to change his ventilator tube to a larger one that takes up more space in his throat. They think the other one was allowing some of the gases to escape, but they didn't want to risk taking him off of the ventilator, only for a few mins, when he was not stable. The switch was scary for us (we had to wait outside), but Lincoln did great! He was showing good numbers when we left him last night and have called several times throughout the night and have been told he is doing ok. He's a fighter
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