Day 56: April 11th
I guess it’s been too quiet the last few days, and needed to shake things up.
Ryker received another X-ray this morning to check the location of his feeding tube. He was still spitting up a bit last night, but realized when the nurse who replaced his tube yesterday, didn’t move it much further down than it was prior. So his day nurse, Tori adjusted it again to maybe see if it would help.
During the X-ray, the radiologist who read it noticed his hip was out of socket and looked as though there was a small fracture in his femur. So they ordered in an ultrasound to look at it closer. The fracture appears to have healed on its own already. They’re not entirely sure what had caused it in the first place.
Physical therapy recently brought up that his left hip does occasionally rotate outward more than normal, but isn’t always noticeable. Ortho stopped by this afternoon and confirmed his hip dysplasia, and it appears the hip does to pop in and out. They brought in a harness to strap him into that positions him into a frog like splayed position. This should let the hip socket grow correctly and contain his ball joint within approximately 12 weeks. Tori however was a little concerned about having him in this full body harness while he’s still needing significant respiratory support. God forbid they needed to resuscitate him in an emergency, the harness would be something difficult to work around. She hasn’t seen a harness like this in the 5 years she’s been working in the NICU ward, at least on someone so little. So she was checking in with the neonatal team to see if perhaps they can postpone the harness until he is more stable on his respiratory care. We’ll see what their thoughts are.. I really appreciate her attentiveness and concern for our little guy. She is always super precautionary, and just want to make sure he’s in the best care.
On a positive note, he seems to be doing well on his CPAP machine. Tori was able to get him down to 37% on his oxygen level, which is fabulous! Hopefully we can continue to move forward on this and start getting him off if CPAP and on to high flow oxygen at some point.
Hoping little man can get some rest tonight. He’s had a big day between X-rays, ultrasounds, heart echo, and being examined and strapped up by the orthopedic specialists.
