Milk

Camden finally has some milk in her belly. This afternoon they were able to give her 2ml of breast milk through a tube. So far she seems to be taking it well.

Two big things now need to happen before Cary and I can hold her and have "Kangaroo Time."

1. First is to give Camden a PICC and remove the 2 lines in her umbilical cord. This will give the nurses and doctors a better, more longterm path to inject medication, electrolytes, and fats. We expect that to happen in the next couple of days.

2. Camden needs to shift off the high frequency ventilator and to a traditional ventilator.

We are still tweaking in the ventilator settings to keep her blood gases where we want them, but overall she is doing very well and showing improvement.

Sorry this is a pretty choppy entry. We are going to get some sleep so our writing can improve.

Paul

No more DOPamine

Dopamine was the major of the two blood pressure medications Camden has been on. As of this morning, there is no more medicine pump labeled "DOPamine".

One less drug!!!

She has continued to improve on the ventilator settings and is feisty as ever during care time. She is showing a lot of spirit which is good.

We also have such wonderful friends. Even an hour away, we have people bringing us food and just stopping by to spend the evening with us. A good friend of Cary's is flying in from out of town for the weekend on Thursday. Rhonda, Cary's mom, is heading out tonight. Just a continuous stream of support has come our way.

Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Paul

The Treehouse Apt

Tacoma General Hospital provides an amazing service called the Treehouse Apartments. These apartments are recently renovated and very nice. The building is secure and safe. The rooms are nice, big, and clean. There is a large common area, a playroom for kids, a resource center with computers, and a conference room open for use. There is a very large kitchen with 6 cooking stations so multiple families can cook dinner. There is a small fridge in our room and several large fridges and freezers in the kitchen for open use. There is a common pantry for use by all guest to use that is filled by guests and donations.

All of this is available for donations only. They request $20 a night, but payment is not required to stay.

This is an amazing program and again I can not say how amazing it is we were sent to Tacoma General and not Madigan.

http://www.multicare.org/home/tree-house-place-2

Paul

Good Morning

This morning we got the results back from the crainial ultrasound.....

And the results are good: Camden has a Class 1 brain bleed.

Basically there is a scale of brain bleeds of 0-4. Class 1-2 are minor and will often resolve themselves. Class 3-4 are major and require a shunt to remove the excess fluid. With the nature of Camden's birth, she was expected to have a major bleed. The doctor and the nurse were both surprised at how minor the bleed was. The doctors also did not notice any significant problems with the brain otherwise. There is still a small chance there is some damage based on the lack of O2 for the period of time after birth, but this is a major step in the right direction for Camden.

Also for the first time last night they were able to turn down her blood pressure medication. Her blood pressure is actually too high. Now she is still on a fairly high level of blood pressure medication, but for the first time we are able to wen the medication slightly.

The next small milestone is the blood culture to confirm if the Strep bacteria has been eliminated, which we should find out tonight/tomorrow. Other than that, we are on the long road of lung development. So far this has been a series of small victories as we turn down the ventilator and the O2 levels since she is able to pick up more and more of the load on her own.

Camden is also becoming more responsive each day. When Cary and I go in to do care, take her temperature and change the diaper, she has opened her eyes and moved her arms more.

There is still a very long road ahead. She still needs a lot of support, but every little step ahead is a small victory.

Paul

Good things in bad times

Even with all this bad stuff, amazing things are happening.

1. I should not be home now. At this moment I should be underwater with my crew in the submarine, but because they wanted to send me to a school, I am home.

2. In this situation, we should be a Madigan Army Hospital being in the military. We instead were sent to Tacoma General because Madigan was full and Tacoma General has apartments for us to stay close to Camden at no cost.

3. If Cary had not gone back to the doctor because of bleeding, she never would have been sent to Tacoma General (she has been here for 2 weeks since her water broke) and Camden would not be alive now because we never would have made it to the hospital.

The doctors and nurses here have been wonderful and without their very decisive and precise action, Camden would not have made it this far. The support we have received from the families on my boat, our church and our family has been overwhelming in a wonderful way.

The short of it is, No matter the outcome, we feel so very blessed to have Camden right now and all the support everyone has given us. Please continue to pray for our little girl.

Paul

Camden is Born

Camden was born by an emergency C-Section. Cary was experiencing some contractions and when the nurse checked Camden's heart rate, it was very low. They did the emergency C-section and delivered Camden. She needed resuscitation and was transfered to the NICU.

Since then she has been on a ventilator and has been on blood pressure medication and antibiotics for a bacterial infection. At first she required the ventilator operating at as high of a capacity as possible to keep her where she needed to be. Since then she was put on a Nitric-Oxide (not Nitrus-Oxide) which has helped her blood absorb more O2 and exhale CO2 and we have been able to lower the amount of life support she needed. She is also having problems with maintaining her blood pressure and has a bacterial infection which they believe to be Strep. We will find out tonight/tomorrow if the antibiotics got rid of that. Friday evening she also had a severe "episode" where her O2 and blood pressure dropped dramatically. The last concern is the damage to the organs from the O2 deprivation during delivery. There is a cranial ultrasound on Monday night to look for a brain bleed which could be a result of the low O2 and the trauma she encountered at birth.

Camden is trending up well. Her O2 and CO2 Stats are responding very well to treatment and her blood pressure is improving, but very slowly and they have not been able to wen any drugs to support that. Even with improvement, she is still a very sick girl and needs lots of prayers.

You can see pictures of her at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/r.cary.evans/CamdenJaneEvans#

Cary, is doing very well. She is able to walk without support and pain has been easily controlled with oral drugs for the last day.

Paul