Evening update (Tuesday 1/6)

After a couple of days of breathing well on his own, Max started to run into trouble today. Carolyn spent the day with him, and noticed that he was breathing faster and "retracting"--i.e. breathing so hard that you can see his chest heaving. We spoke with Nurse B. who told us that Max's breathing problems persisted into the evening, with his breathing rate going over 100 breaths per minute. Although his oxygen saturation remained good, it was obvious that Max was working really hard to breathe. Nurse B. also thought Max looked a little puffier tonight than the last couple of nights.

In response, the NICU team hit Max with another dose of Lasix, and it seems to have given him some relief: his breathing rate is now down in the 40s, or even lower. We'll get a reading on whether Max is still retracting at the 3:30 AM check-in.

Max's head circumference increased another 0.5 cm, to 38 cm. The NICU attending examined his head and fontanels, and thought that they felt fine. She declared that "Max needs to grow."