Milk Coma!

Today Owen is 6 days old. The time has already gone by quick. Owen has had another good day. There have been some changes in Owen over the last 24hrs. Owen has had to have his oxygen increased to keep up with his PDA closing causing him to have a lower oxygen saturation. To my medical friends out there this is ok. He sats down into the 70s at times but they say as long as he does not show any acidosis he is ok. He has done better with the breast feeding today and continues to have a good time with his mom. With breast feeding you never really know how much they are getting so after the breast he still drinks about another 40-60 mls with every feeding. They had to start Owen on a new medication today called Sildenafil (aka Viagra). No he does not have a male performance problem (he is a Britton) and yes he can have an erection. Some may ask why he is on this- he is on this med because it causes vessels to get bigger (vasodilation) and can decrease pulmonary pressure and for all of you out there that did not know this, they even give it to women. It's kinda fun to tell people that your 6 day old is on viagra and to see their reaction. He will stay on this for awhile until pulmonary pressure decreases or has non wanted side effects. They have found some other things on his echo that I have not talked about yet. Owen has what is called an ASD. This is a hole that is between the right and left atrium that will need to be fixed but not yet. He also has issues with his left pulmonary veins. The pulmonary veins come back from the lungs with oxygenated blood and drain into the heart to be pumped to the body. In Owens case one of these veins drain into subclavian vein. This will have to be fixed with surgery at a later date around six months. Overall cardiology thinks Owen is doing well and will need surgeries in the future but not at this time. As we know things can change but we will keep our fingers crossed. The plan as of now is continue to watch him wait for his sats to come up and the PDA to close all the way. He also was able to have 1 of his IVs removed today. He still has the scalp IV that is super attractive and is a lady stopper but hopefully that will come out soon.

Chelsea and I were able to leave early tonight so we made a date out of and had the great comfort food of In-n-out burger. Nothing like that to remove stress and make you feel ill. We then stopped down by the garden to say hi to the chickens and pick some veggies. Thank you all again for the support and we will keep you posted.

-Chris