Update 3

Sunday February 14th-They moved McKay over to the B side of the nursery last night. The B side is usually for the healthier kids, those that are mostly working on feeding. He did very well for his morning and afternoon feeding. That evening we got a call that they were moving him back to the A side. His CO2 levels were high, so they decided to do an x-ray to see how his lungs were doing. His lungs looked find but they want to keep him on the A side so a respiratory therapist can keep an eye on him.
Monday Febraruy 15th-He had 3 feedings today, but I could tell he was really tired by the third one. When the doctor called to give us the update she told us that she had run blood gases on him yesterday just because he didn't look good. His CO2 was down a little bit, but had also climbed that morning. By the afternoon it was at a good level. Kyle and I went down together today, he hasn't seen him in a while because of his surgery and then his infection.
Tuesday February 16th-The Doctor, nurse and I all agreed that 3 feedings was pushing him a little too much. So we all agreed to move him down to 2 feedings. They also moved him back to the B side. The chief of the NICU requested to be the doctor who rounded on him, he hasn't evaluated him in a few days. He is still concerned about his head size. He wants to do some research and they are going to talk about him specifically in their weekly meeting. (Meeting with all of the NICU doctors and they discuss each patient). They called us later that night and said they had not come up with any other ideas about his head size and it most likely is that he just has a big head. They once again wanted to make sure all the abnormalities did not link together, or were a syndrome of some kind. However the Chief is concerned about his chest size, it is smaller than his abdomen, and smaller compared to the rest of his body.
Wednesday February 17th-McKay was not having a great day. He had two feedings today but was breathing really hard for both of them. Even before I started feeding him he was struggling with his breathing. They are doing the echo tomorrow for his heart.
Thursday February 18th-Still is breathing a little harder, had to call the nurse over a couple of times while I was there. The doctor also said he had more retracting than he had before and she wanted to keep an eye on him. He had a good morning feeding. They are doing the echo on his heart tonight. His head size and length are past the 97th percentile, and his weight is in the 97th percentile according to his gestational age.
Friday February 19th-He had a really good morning feeding, he got over half of his feeding from breast feeding. The doctor called us tonight and gave us some not great news. They got the results of the echo. It turns out that the hypertension (high blood pressure) that goes from his heart to his lungs is not getting better. He has a moderate to severe case. They are now referring us to a specialist from Primary's, a pediatric cardiologist. They told us that he could be on oxygen for anywhere from 2 months up to 8 years. There is no medication they can give him for this, the only thing they can do is oxygen. We are hoping that we will be able to find out more details when the specialist looks at him next week. It is not life threatening as long as he is on oxygen. I just feel like there is constantly something, Kyle said it has to get worse before it can get better. I don't know how much more I can handle.