Lungs -new info-

So, William's Doctor says he's generally doing pretty well, but this afternoon they decided they needed to go back up on the hydrocortisone to stabilize his blood pressure. William has been shunting (at least that's what the nurse called it, I think it's spelled correctly?). His blood pressure in his lungs is too high from the stress they're under, and since he's little enough that he has an extra hole in his heart, the blood can somehow bypass the lungs and get into his system, so that some of his blood is not as highly saturated with oxygen. So they poked and prodded a little to make sure that resuming the original hydrocortisone dose is the best course of action. We are expecting that since his lungs have been taking such a beating, that they are basically getting exhausted and that he might be needing stronger support from the oxygen machines. There's still different drugs and settings they can use to change things up. Regardless, he will still be getting milk everyday from now on, and that is probably still the best thing for him to get, even to help with the lungs. GROW GROW GROW.
After they repositioned the breathing tube today, he was much much happier. Not squirming and seemed more stable. But we needed to be more hands off with him today, which is hard. He's getting enough stimulation already, and it's more important for him to chill and let the machines help him. We need to be prepared for a lot of ups and downs with his lungs for a while.

And a few hours later, in the words of Jeff who called in for an update on his way home from work:

Ok... so I don't know how to do updates on the blog, been too busy.  But the latest is that:
  He wasn't getting enough oxygen through his body with the oscillator, but he did better when they were "bagging" him by hand.  So they moved him to a normal ventilator, and so far he seems to like it better.  The doctor I spoke with thinks that's a good thing, because it means his lungs are more developed to handle the normal in and out breathing.  His blood pressure was too low, so they put him back on dopamine.  The air pressure from the ventilators is too high, so they are mixing the air with nitrous oxide to lower the air pressure.  The combination of low blood pressure and high air pressure going into his lungs causes his blood to reverse flow, due to an artery that's open in the heart in small babies (Melissa called it  a hole in the heart I think).  But it's not really a hole... just a vein that doesn't close until later in life.  It's supposed to be open when the baby is inside the mommy.  So, for now William is stable, but he is on more and different machines.