Michael in NICU - Progressive news

I am copying and pasting the thread on the Ferrell Family MyFamily Site:

Jaelene Starr - Feb 27, 2009 Friday

Little Michael has been in NICU since yesterday. His blood sugar kept going down, he will not suck and CO2 builds up too high. All these things are a concern, but are a result of being a little early. They had to feed him with a feeding tube yesterday to get some food in him. All in all, he actually is not doing terrible--just needs a little time to get stronger and stabilized. Julie will be discharged today and as long as they have rooms, they will be able to rent a room as a hotel stay. They are in the new IMC hospital. The NICU is really something. Visitors have to go to a scrub sink and scrub for 3 minutes before they can go in.

Jaelene Starr - Feb 27, 2009 Friday
The test results are in. He has two heart defects which are causing all of his problems. He will have open heart surgery the end of next week.

There are 2 systems in and out of the heart. Two arteries from the different systems have a "window"that is they are partially fused together-blood from the 2 systems can mix. This is causing the build up of CO2.

The second problem is that the aorta branch that feeds blood to the lower trunk and legs is too narrow and cannot supply enough blood. This has resulted in the bleeding in the intestines. Right now it has caused air bubbles to form in the intestinal lining and is actually the most critical situation right now. It can easily cause a perforation. For this reason they are taking a x-ray every 6 hours to be sure it has not perforated. They have put a pic line in and are giving him prostaglandin which will help reverse this problem and should help the intestines heal some- which is the desired state for surgery next week.

They do expect that this can all be corrected with surgery and that he will not have long-term problems--a great blessing.

Julie asked how many open-heart surgeries with bipass machines they do on little guys like this. The answer usually 3 per day!!! Lots of parents in anguish, lots of medical miracles.

Julie of course is a basket case with the after-birth hormones. She is running a fever right now.

Jaelene Starr - Feb 28, 2009 - Saturday

I spent a lot of the day in the NICU with Julie. The defect that is mixing blood in Michael is very rare. Primary's sees it only once or twice a year. The artery coming in and the artery coming out cross, and where they cross there is a window, they said that it was large. He is actually is doing worse. Will likely end up on a ventilator. They would like to do heart surgery ASAP, but we did not totally understand the problem with his gut. They cannot do the heart surgery until that is resolved. His white blood cell count is climbing, indicating that the gut has increased infection. It is possible that some of his intestines actually died. So another surgery team is on standby for that. They won't know yet until more time passes. The gut surgery would have to be first. It is a very complicated situation right now even for the great and fantastic teams of Dr.s at Primary's because they have to use so many medications to try to balance out the problems in his heart.