Potassium

We had to take Eli back in today for more labs. Everything looked fine on Wednesday with his blood work except his potassium was a little elevated. Potassium is filtered by the kidneys and high potassium levels can negatively impact the heart. So I took him to the UK Childrens' Hospital today and they drew some blood from his hand - the potassium was still the same but everything else looked even better. The doctor isn't convinced that this is a true number because of how hard it is to draw blood in babies. They have such little veins so the blood doesn't flow out like it would in an adult. Because of this, the nurse has to squeeze the area to get the blood out. This causes the red blood cells to break and the potassium to come out of the cells making the potassium appear elevated. We are going to take him back in tomorrow for one more blood draw. The hope is that they will find a vein that flows well (these are usually in the scalp in babies) and the potassium will be normal. On the bright side, here are some beautiful, smiling babies.

(Eli)

(Noah)