Saturday, September 19th Update

Today was a hard day for my mama heart. Right now Cooper's doctors are finding the balance of how much morphine to give him. Too much makes it difficult for him to breathe, and too little obviously means he's in pain from surgery. Last night around midnight Cooper was having a difficult time breathing and seemed to be in a lot of pain post surgery, so he was moved to the high flow oxygen. The high flow oxygen helped immensely, but for a lot of today he still seemed to be in pain. He had another big desaturation episode this afternoon so they turned up the high flow oxygen from 3 liters to 6 liters, and he did much better. If he needs more respiratory support they will put him on CPAP. He is receiving morphine and Tylenol every three hours and seemed to be more comfortable when we left this evening.

All things considered, he's doing very well post op. Tonight our nurse heard bowel sounds when she was examining him, which is a great sign. The tube you see in his mouth is called an Anderson. The Anderson is intermittently sucking out secretions from stomach because Cooper's bowel cannot digest the mucus yet.  Once the secretions in the Anderson start to run clear they can remove it and it will be another step towards beginning to feed Cooper.

Since surgery we have had a few of our primary nurses taking care of Cooper, and they have all done an incredible job of keeping him comfortable and being attentive to his needs. We love our primary nurses -- we spend more time with them than anyone else these days, and they have become great friends. It takes a very special kind of person to devote their life to caring for medically complex newborns. I could go on and on about the skill, compassion and intelligence of NICU nurses! We are so grateful for them.

We're hoping Cooper turns a corner tomorrow and that today was the worst of it. There is nothing worse than seeing your baby in pain and not being able to take it away. :( He is only one day post op from major abdominal surgery, so discomfort is anticipated. However, he seems to be doing much better this evening and hopefully he will heal quickly. Thank you for all of the prayers on his behalf.