July 14, 2009

Gabe’s numbers went up and down throughout the night. The plan for the day is to help Gabe’s blood pressure by giving him some more blood. They are stopping the Dopamine to help with the blood pressure. They now think that he no longer has an infection but are going to continue to give him a few heavy duty antibiotics. They have placed Gabe back on a Steroid that will help him in every area. He was previously on the Steroids but they were removed and they think that is why Gabe took a U-turn. He will also be getting what is called Albumen or Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP), this is a blood product that will help Gabe with his “leaky” pipes. This will keep fluid inside his vessels and should help them from leaking into his body which causes the edema or puffiness. Gabe will also be placed on Lasix, which is a diuretic and will make him urinate more to get rid of all the extra fluid. The internal pressure on his ventilator will be turned up to help with his high CO2 levels. Gabe was turned today which is pretty much just putting his head at the foot of the bed. He definitely doesn’t like this because it always takes about 3 hours for him to recover. Gabe also had a IV stop working and they have started another one. He now has two chest tubes, two PICC lines, one arterial line, a catheter, an OG tube and ET tube. The poor guy looks like a science experiment. Hopefully tonight will be a night of rest for Gabe and he holds steady and continues to improve.