Kidney Function

Aaron's nurse noticed yesterday that he was having a hard time keeping his core temperature up. She looked in on him and noticed that his sheets were wet. She called in the nurse practitioner and together they changed his sheets. While doing so they also weighed him. Aaron's current weight is approximately 2500 grams. This puts him just over 5 1/2 lbs. Unfortunately that is not such good news. In the process of changing the sheets and weighing him they realized the sheets were wet because his skin has started to weep. Aaron's reference weight is somewhere around 1500 grams although they are using 2000 grams to figure his prescriptions to make sure he is getting enough medicine. He is carrying at least 2 lbs of fluid under his skin. This has made his skin very taught and extremely painful. They have tried a few different ideas to help him flush this fluid but they don't seem to be working, certainly not the way they want it too. This tells us his kidneys and capillaries are not functioning properly.

The doctor tells us he is pretty sure these events have stemmed from some kind of infection although they don't know what kind. They have decided to keep his antibiotics on board for 21 days. I think that will be up on Thursday. Infectious Disease has been called in once again for any ideas. This week's Attending has told us treating Aaron is much like a series of Trial and Error. I feel like we have been doing the same trial and error way too much lately as we seem to be doing the same things and only having errors and no successes. Aaron has another echo on Tuesday to make sure his hypertension and heart continue to be stable. This Attending goes off rotation on Wednesday. They have called another Care Conference to square away the plan of action before he leaves and the new one takes over.

I spoke with the nurse practitioner about what was going on and some of our frustration with the "Attending Shuffle" we now refer to. We have been here long enough to have gotten to know most of them and how they are differ in opinions and personalities. Like the nurses we have our favorites. Hopefully one of them will think up a solution. That is our prayer today.