Day 3 new update 11:59 pm March 31st 2011

We have a little bit of bad news mixed with positive results. Henry was not able to get rid of the right amount of CO2 and unfortunately he had to get on the different type of ventilator-the oscillator as pictured earlier. The great news is that it seems to be working very well after they tweaked it several times this evening. In fact they have stabilized the CO2 levels and oxygen saturation and will be bringing down the levels of oxygen ever so slightly every two hours throughout the night. He now has a little bit of a wiggle in his breath and the machine is doing 95% of the breathing for him. Earlier he was sedated with a neuro muscular blocker which made him breathe less on his own and now he is letting the oscillator take over.

Video of Henry on the oscillator.

He is still getting more different types of fluids and drugs than I have fingers and I thought I would share the what the magic potions look like.

Left to right, this machine gives Sugar water, Morphine, heparin, and versed (a sedative) This is a photo of the machine which administers the dopamine and dobutamine. An identical machine will give plasma and red blood cells. His Xrays continue to improve and look less hazy which means the air pockets are starting to open up and spread out.

This is a picture of the portable xray machine.

Here is a photo of the latest xray. His right lung is the one in distress (collapsed) and the doctors say it is starting to look better.

We have been comforted a bit as we talked to a nurse who works in NICU and 5 years ago she had a child in NICU for 11 days with similar symptoms. He fully recovered and never had a single side effect.

Also one of the Doctors on rotation this evening is the son of one of my A&M professors Dr. Harry Jones. Like his father, he was also an Aggie and it was comforting to be helped by a fellow Aggie.

Memorial Hermann has a fantastic program operated off of donations called the Ronald McDonald House. It provides limited housing of about 10 rooms at Memorial Hermann 7th floor to the parents of those most in need to be close to their newborns per night. Tonight we are lucky as we are going to be just down the hall from Henry. We are actually spending the night closer to Henry tonight than last night.

This evening Grammy and Poppy brought Charlie up to eat some donated "Papa" (Charlie's way of saying Papa Johns Pizza) by the Ronald McDonald House in the Kitchen Lounge. Thanks for all the inspiration of prayer and words. They really mean alot. I like to remember that after a storm comes the rainbow.