Blip on the radar

So, Calvin is starting to ease into the 'long time' tail of the distribution for getting off the CPAP. It sounds like it will take another week or two of him still relying on it before people start to think this is a real problem, but at the moment his breathing sticks out as one area where he's not really sprinting out of the blocks. I was never much of a sprinter, so I blame myself.

What they now suspect he has, and might be contributing to his slow move towards breathing on his own, is a patent ductus areteriosus (PDA). You can google it for details if you're into that sort of thing, but basically the ductus areteriosus is a structure involved in letting blood bypass the lungs while a baby is still in the womb (and hence not doing much breathing). It's supposed to close up shortly after birth, but in preterm babies it can sometimes remain open (patent), sending too much blood to the lungs and overburdening the heart.

Calvin isn't totally symptomatic of this, but they hear a heart murmur and are going to have a cardiologist take a look on Wednesday to get a better idea of what's going on. If he does have one but it's small and probably not the cause of his breathing issues, they're not exactly eager to rush in and aggressively treat this. The plan is still to give him more time to grow and mature with the CPAP support, and see what happens. After asking two doctors variations of the same question as many times as I felt that I could, our understanding is that this isn't yet a pressing concern, but something to be aware of. We'll know more on Wednesday, I suppose.

We heard about this last night, and night is a bad time it turns out to find out not-so-sunny news. After more reading, pestering the doctors, and in the light of day, this seems ok for now though, so I hope this post isn't alarming.

I'd like to post a picture to lighten the mood, but all the pictures from today are on Rick and Rose's camera. Imagine Calvin chomping and slurping away at a miniature pacifier- that's how we left him tonight, and that's cute.

PS- magic of the internets, Rick just emailed me a picture. No imagination required!