My little buddy

I called to see who was watching over my little buddy this morning and was relieved to hear it was Penny. As you have all read, Parker's nurses have all been very good and we just like continuity when his primary nurses are off. Penny has been through some of his roughest days.

Parker's having even more trouble breathing this morning. His vent settings have been increased to 40 breaths per minute, pressures at 23 and 7 and his oxygen rate about 30%. The problem is now his left lung is fairly collasped. His right lung was the problem the last week.

There is a fine line between pushing him along and holding him back, both have consequences. In hindsight it looks like he wasn't ready to be taken off the vent. It is traumatic for him it be poked and prodded so much and he expended a lot of energy trying to breath on his own. I am hoping his vent settings come down quickly.

Overall, Parker's labs looked good yesterday morning with the exception of one of his antibiotic levels. I will be talking to them today about why the levels have been below the therapeutic dose. This antibiotic has been going through his PICC line and as soon as they gave the antibiotics through a new IV in head head last night the levels were acceptable. I need to look back on the chart but I don't think the levels have been right for at least the last week. Unfortunately, I didn't know what the appropriate levels were until last night.