May 23, 2006

The last few days have been a real struggle for Zacahary. The doctors decided to do a blood gas following one of his nasal canula sprints on Sunday and his CO2 level was 118. Needless to say, that is really bad (the doctors considers this level of CO2 respiratory failure.) We were there to witness the end of his sprint and it was pretty rough to see. Zachary was grunting and really struggling to breath and his color was almost an ashen gray. The doctors stopped the sprints and returned his CPAP to the pre-canula settings. The bad news is that his CO2 levels are not returning to acceptable levels.

Today we had a discussion with the doctors surrounding the potential need for Zachary to have a tracheostomy. The plan is to take regular blood gases over the next few days and make a determination of whether or not we need to take that course of action. If Zachary's CO2 levels do not significantly improve the doctors state that there is no real viable other option as elevated CO2 levels can lead to serious heart issues. If a tracheostomy is required it will most likely happen middle of next week.

Sorry we don't have good news for this update but we thought it would be important for everyone to know what is going on. We hope our next update brings a better outlook.