Addison Update - 27 December

Hi Everyone,

John posting again today since I was the one who spent the night with Addison at Vandy last night. Carolyn and I have been alternating nights to provide each other a chance to get some sleep and spend time with Annabelle. All in all it was not a bad night, but Addison did not make the progress we were hoping she would. They turned her oxygen mix down from 30% to 28% at about 8:00 pm. (normal air is 21% oxygen). 28% is usually the last stop before they put the patient on "room air" (21%). She did very well for several hours keeping her saturation levels in the high 90th percentile (93% is the magic number, and of course you would like to see 100%). At about midnight, her alarm began to go off repeatedly, and saturation levels were falling into the low 90s and high 80s. They did a "deep suction" - that's where they stick a thin tube connected to a vacuum through her nose and down her throat to suck out all the mucus. Even though young babies can cough, unlike the rest of us, they lack the strength to bring up the stuff that settles in the upper respiratory tract. The deep suction yielded surprisingly little mucus, so her oxygen level was increased again to 30%. It took about 30 minutes and several "mouth and nose suctions" - these are not done as deeply and simply clean out the mouth and nose cavity - but she was finally able to sustain better O2 Sat levels and got some rest between about 2:00 am and 6:30 am. She continues to eat well and is passing fluids well. She has not had a bowel movement in about 30 hours and I am secretly hoping that she will save that for Carolyn when she takes over for me later in the morning :-) (sorry honey, just being honest)

RSV in infants can run its course in a matter of days, or it can take a week or more for the worst of the symptoms to subside. As of today we are at Day 6 since we first noticed her cough and low grade fever and Day 4 since she was admitted, so we hope that we are through the worst of it and she will begin to improve. All things considered she is doing remarkably well, and her case has not been bad. She had no fever this morning and seems to be doing well at 30% O2, so I hope we can begin to ween her off of her oxygen again today. She is in no distress and her breathing is generally not labored so mostly she just rests.

Thanks again to everyone for their prayers, support and comments on Facebook. We feel very blessed to be supported by the wonderful staff here at Vanderbilt and hope to have Little Addison on her way home in the next day or two. God bless you all and Happy New Year!

J&C