When we visited Benton last night, his vitals seemed more stable than where he was during lunch. His blood had an oxygen saturation of above 90 and his supplemental oxygen was down to 70% from 79%. We were setting up to read him some stories for the first time in a couple of nights (we've been avoiding reading to him so as to not stress him out). Half way through the story his oxygen saturation plummeted to around 70. The nurse increased his oxygen supplement to 100% but his saturation climbed closer to 80% but didn't get much higher. This worried the nurses (and us) so they took a chest x-ray. It looked like his breathing tube was in a perfect position so that wasn't the issue. Our nurse, Jim, thought that the tube was in the right position between the clavicle and the lobes of the lungs, but the tube had gotten oriented to be abutting the side of the trachea instead of pointing down into the lungs. They tried to maneuver Benton to remedy the issue and it helped slightly. His saturation levels climbed up to about 82%. Upon further investigation of the chest x-ray, they determined that the left lobe of his lung had deflated and that his oxygen saturation was solely coming from the right side. On one level, this was a relief to know why he had de-sat'd, but on the other hand it is scary to think that your baby is working on one lung. The attending doctor came in and explained that babies survive on 40-60 oxygen saturation in the womb and that Benton was not in any danger at 82, but that to grow properly we will really need to get him back up to 90. The attending also explained that they are going to try several treatments to re-inflate the lung but that they were going to take their time to figure out a way that would avoid stressing his body anymore than they had too. They said it probably would take several hours to get him back to normal and that we could go home and call back if we were worried.
It was calming to hear the explanation and that they had a plan so we took the attending's advice and headed back, said our nightly prayers for Benton's health, especially praying that his lobe would re-inflate, and got to sleep around 12:30AM. We got up and phoned the NICU at 5AM to check on his progress. They had been able to increase his JET pressure high enough to re-inflate his left lobe and get him back down to an oxygen mix of 70%, so that was good news. But his nurse told us that his blood gas levels still aren't that great. They have been keeping a very close eye on his blood gasses over the last few days since his PIE set in. So right now, we're re-focusing our prayers towards him having better blood gas levels and healing his PIE.
On the brighter side of things, while we were whispering words of encouragement through the isolet, we managed to see Benton open his right eye for the very first time. This was one of the best things we had ever witnessed! In the womb, babies have their eyes fused shut until about 26-28 weeks, so it was normal that Benton's eyes were fused when he was born. It is such an amazing thing to witness your baby's eye open for the first time and have his first look be that of his loving parents! Even though it's a small thing, it made our night. He closed his eye back up very fast, probably because there were bright lights around. But it's nice to know he can finally see us while we are talking to him.
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