Pulmonary Hypertension

Alisha and I are heading to the hospital to visit Roscoe today. Last night the doctor let us know that she suspects Roscoe has pulmonary hypertension. One of my professors in college used to call a phrase like "pulmonary hypertension" a 25-cent phrase that you'd whip out at the dinner table when you're trying to impress someone's family. If you're not trying to impress people, you can just say it as "high blood pressure in his lungs".

Usually the blood pressure in a baby's lungs goes down after the baby is born, but Roscoe's has gone up. One possible contributor may be his PDA valve being open, but the doctors said that it's much smaller now and isn't even their primary concern. They said that the largest contributing factor to high blood pressure in his lungs would be another infection. They found traces of an infection in his air tube, which implies that the infection exists on the surface of his lungs. What they are testing for now (and will find out within a day or two) is whether the infection is also in his blood stream. The way I explained it to Alisha is that the infection could be like cheese with surface mold (on the surface of his lungs) or cheese with mold running all the way through it (in his blood stream):

 

We are hoping it is just a surface infection, because if it's in his blood stream then it will be another round of antibiotics. Before you ask, no we haven't been feeding Roscoe any cheese, and no we don't think his lungs are made of cheddar (but they might be some form of Brie). We'll post other updates when we learn more about Roscoe's cheese ... I mean lungs.

Later today, I'll upload a video of Alisha holding Roscoe's head and bottom to comfort him yesterday when he was fiesty.