Day of Life #17

Today we talked with the Nephrologist and got some info from them. In summary, Madeline is going to be on dialysis for the foreseeable future, at least another week or so. What they are looking for is her blood attributes to reach certain levels, and for her fluid output levels to come up, once the levels start to go below what they are looking for, they will start to back off the dialysis and see how much her kidneys are actually doing. They also talked to us about what we might be looking at down the road if they don't fully recover.

The Neonatologist is still very concerned about Madeline's high blood pressure, systolic pressures have been has high as 164, they believe this is a result of both renal function and the hydrocorotazone (sp?) they are giving her. Her potassium went very low, so they are giving her a bolus of that. Urine output is still about half of what they are looking for. There is also still some concern for her bowels, they are going to restart her feeds, but at only 1 or 2ccs just to keep her primed, if they have to stop them again, they will. Rachael and I are praying they will start working the way they should. Her jitters seemed to have tapered off a little bit, and her color is starting to return, although she looks really blotchy still.

We are a long ways away from being out of here, we pray that there are no more major incidents during the rest of our stay though. More later.