Drakes tough day

Today was hard day for little Drake. Seeing your child endure so many needles in one day is one of the toughest things to stomach.

He started his morning off getting an IV put in for his blood transfusion. When that was done they pulled it out and the doctor came in and did his Arterial line in the same wrist. At that time, they then pulled out his umbilical line since it has been in for six days. A couple hours later they did the echo cardio gram and saw that his PDA valve in the heart was still of significant size to warrant another round of Indocin. What that meant is another IV and no more food! Since he has the PIC line in his right arm and the arterial line in his left arm, this meant they had to go through his ankle...the first two attempts, one in the right and one in the left, did not take so they ended up having to find a vein in the top of his foot. Yes, I had to walk out of the room and take a break because I truly was feeling the pain for him. He has been stable and resting, with a little help of some pain medicine (fentanyl).

Kennedy learned a lesson from her brother yesterday on how to rest and take it easy. She has had increased oxygen help, but has had a good day following all her heart rate drops from yesterday and last night. She is still eating every 3 hours.

Tomorrow is a BIG day. This is when they are going to do the brain scans. Basically they are going to do a sonogram on their brains to look for bleeding from fragile blood vessels in the brain. The hemorrhages are graded from 1 to 4 according to the severity of the bleeding. Small amounts of bleeding (grades 1 to 2) do not usually cause any long-term damage. Larger amounts of bleeding (grades 3 to 4) cause long-term problems.

Below is one of my favorite pics. He was gripping my finger with all of his might. I'm here for you little buddy!!!!