12-17-10

A fabulous day today in Cooper's world. 

Lots of little things that made it a great day for Cooper.  The ketamine is still kind of working.  He still is a little restless today, but it wasn't affecting his numbers like it has in the past.  They were able to come back down on the flow of the ecmo.  They were also able to start weaning the oxygen levels they are supplying to the blood.  Only by 2%, but they have to start somewhere.  The good news was that he didn't notice the change.  Meaning, he is starting to respond and his little body is starting to do the work that the machines have been doing for him.

All his numbers looked great all day long.  His daily chest x-ray showed a possible improvement on the left lung.  However the doctor said that she may have made herself see an improvement.  If anything, it remained unchanged.  He also had an echo today and were told that he had a remarkable change.  We were baffled by this since we were always told that his other echos were normal.  Turns out that previously his numbers were elevated but didn't need intervention.  They had been in the 60's and now are in the 30's.  Per the doctor, this is just another great step for Cooper.  They have been waiting for this so they can start weaning him off the ecmo and other meds.

Since Cooper has been peeing like a champ, they are going to wean him off the dopamine (blood pressure medicine).  He has only been on a dose to help profuse his kidneys, so this will be good for him to get off this anyway.  And on the plumbing standpoint, he pooped today as well.  Yippee.  Ok, I know it's just a bowel movement, but it's his first real one ever.  And they had been hoping that once this started it might help get the remaining air out of his stomach and bowel that is up in his chest.  This would give his lung more room to possibly respond.  Any lung he can get on the left will be great.  The doctors have all said that there is a chance that if given enough room, some of the left lung may open up.  We are hoping that this will work.

This was a great day!

Sonya