Wednesday

Everything is okay. Was just another very long day (nearly 17 hours again) and was too tired to post last night.

Robbie's stool culture came back growing two types of bacteria so they changed his antibiotic to one that will treat both. It's oral, so no IVs for him, thank goodness.

His breathing has been much better. When I left the hospital last night, he was on 23% oxygen and when I called to check on him before I went to bed, he was actually on room air (21%.)

They said his chest x-ray yesterday was markedly improved over Saturday's, so the CPAP is doing its job.

The only thing I'm frustrated about right now is the bile in the stomach thing. There was the theory floating about that the NJ tube was blocking the opening from the stomach to the intestine so maybe the bile just wasn't passing through.

On the X-ray, they could see a lot of air in his tummy & bowels. Could be from the CPAP, could be from the bacteria.

They decided that twice a day, they'd give him an NG tube, suck out the air and put in the antibiotics. That gets the antibiotics into his entire digestive system. It's also bright pink.

I figured this would answer the "is stuff going down" question and then we'd know.

Well, this morning, she said she sucked about 4-5cc of bile out of his stomach when she was pulling air out. But no antibiotic. So stuff is going down, but he still has all this bile in his stomach. But no one seems concerned. His nurse said maybe his body is reacting to all the food going into his intestine and making lots of bile. I don't know.

This is something I intend to discuss with someone tonight. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a medical professional at all, but I'd like an explanation that makes sense, at least.

But, either way, breathing is good. Eating is adequate. The doctors are pleased.

I'm off to work.

--Trish