April 30, 2006

Zachary was extabated again on Saturday (hopefully the third time is a charm). As was the process before, he was put back on a CPAP to provide his breathing support. The good news is he is still on the CPAP and is now going on 36 hours. Prior to this attempt, Zach hadn't made it for longer than 6 hours. Zach has done really well up to this point as it appears the steroids are having the desired effect. Zachary's CO2 levels have remained well within the acceptable range and tonight were actually the lowest we have seen in a long while (including the time he was on the breathing tube). The doctors are encouraged by his progress and are planning to lower his support levels if he can maintain his CO2 level over the next couple of days.

One of the side effects of being on the CPAP is that the doctors have had to adjust the feeding process for Zach. The CPAP tends to fill the stomach with a lot of air making it hard for him to digest his milk. We discovered that yesterday as Zach decided to empty an entire feed onto Daddy's face and shirt (projectile style). The new process is that the doctors have threaded his feeding tube through his stomach past the pyloric sphincter muscle and have it emptying directly into his large intestine. Zach's feeds have also gone from larger amounts every three hours to smaller amounts that are continuously given to him over each hour. He seems to be doing better with the new process and we will probably follow this process until he is removed from the CPAP.

The current plan is to monitor Zach's progress and if all goes well move him from the CPAP to a nasal canula that will provide oxygen only (no pressure or breathing support) within the next week.

We seem to have turned a corner and hope Zachary can continue to make progress over the next few weeks. Thanks for all of the support and prayers, we'll update again soon.