Thomas' ABCs - Apneoa, Bradycardia and C-PAP

For the past few days, Thomas has been doing well off his C-PAP, managing 9 hours off and having 5 hours on to recover. Throughout this time he has been suffering from regular Apnoea and Bradycardias. Basically, Thomas' breathing slows down and sometimes stops, this causes his Oxygen saturation levels to drop and finally his heart rate to go down from 160 bpm to about 70 bpm. Sometimes these have got extremely low and all the alarms have gone off but so far he has been able to correct himself by being given a whiff of oxygen and a bit of stimulation.

The doctors and nurses seem a bit mystified as it can be caused by various things so they can only treat one at a time and see which works. At the moment, they are treating him for reflux where some of the milk and acids are brought up after feeds, causing respiratory problems. He's been on one of the drugs for two days and today they've started another as there hasn't been any improvement. Not all the Apneoas are after feeds though so they've taken some bloods today to do some more tests. The last and most worrying could be his brain not functioning properly as a result of his brain bleed however, Apneoas are quite common amongst premature babies and they grow out of them so we're hoping that Thomas will simply do this.

In the meantime, we've just got to grin and bare it which after everything else should be a walk in the park - I wish it was that easy!!

Since I wrote this afternoon's post, Thomas has had a good afternoon so we're hoping this will continue overnight and the number of Apneoas will decrease. The doctors had also done some blood tests and another headscan this afternoon as part of their investigations. His initial blood test was normal but they have sent off samples to the lab for further testing. However, the best news of the week is the swelling in the left ventrical of his brain has substantially decreased and although the swelling in the right ventrical remains the same, it does appear to be showing signs of absorbtion so we're hoping the next few weeks will see more improvement.

Here's a couple of new pics of Thomas showing us his new facial expressions!!