The Little Blue Pill

Lana had another ECHO done earlier in the week, and looked like there was no improvement of her PDA. In addition, her pulmonary hypertension doesn’t seem to be getting any better either. They aren’t able to perform PDA ligation on her until her pulmonary hypertension is resolved, because it essentially puts more strain on the heart. So they decided to start her on sildenafil (Yup. It’s viagra. The little blue pill... except its crushed and dissolved into solution).

Why viagra? Well in plain language, pulmonary hypertension means the blood vessels leading to the lungs have unusually high pressures. That means less blood flow to the lungs, and thus less oxygen reaching the organs. Sildenafil may cause these blood vessels to relax and therefore allow for improved blood flow. (Long and boring explanation can be found here: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fped.2013.00023/full)

Lana’s neonatologist also thought it would be a good time to see how well she can tolerate being taken off the CPAP and placed in just a high-flow nasal cannula. Her CPAP was used to force air into her lungs since she needed help breathing. However, some of the air would also go into her belly and cause some distention. Hopefully she can tolerate being off the CPAP.

Again, we just want to say thanks for keeping Lana in your thoughts and prayers. We’re definitely blessed.

Update: October 11, 2015

They had to put Lana back on bubble CPAP this morning because she appeared to be working too hard to maintain the same oxygen saturations with just the high-flow nasal cannula. She almost made it to 48 hours without the CPAP, so we're very proud of what she was able to accomplish. They will give her a few more days to get stronger, and maybe give it another go by next Friday. She's probably super tired, so we hope she gets some good rest.