CPAP

Many times I catch myself posting all the medical terms and forgetting that not everybody knows what I mean. I have to rewrite most of my status messages a few times to make sure everyone can understand. Nobody wants to read an update and have to google the entire sentence before they understand what the heck I am even talking about. 

At this point, Eli is recovering well from the collapsed lungs. He doesn't have his ART line anymore and his feeding tube has been placed in his intestine instead of his stomach. This reason is so we don't overkill his belly. The CPAP mask is doing a lot for his lungs and pushing air into his belly so this causes him to vomit. We don't want him to vomit any of his breastmilk so they went ahead and bypassed the belly straight into the duodenum. He will continue to get 2ml/hr for now. 

The CPAP mask is really helping Eli. This is a brief description on why he has to wear this. 

CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure, is a treatment that uses mild air pressure to keep the airways open. CPAP typically is used by people who have breathing problems, such as sleep apnea. CPAP also may be used to treat preterm infants whose lungs have not fully developed. For example, doctors may use CPAP to treat infants who have respiratory distress. Also, in some infants, CPAP prevents the need to insert a breathing tube through the mouth and into the windpipe to deliver air from a ventilator. (A ventilator is a machine that supports breathing.)

So that's where we are with that. Here are a few pics from the weekend and week. He's holding his own :)