Update in the ICU

Well it seems that we finally have a reason for what's been going on.  Two reasons, I guess.

1.    Significant swelling from the T&A, which we already knew.

2.   That swelling seems to have contributed to her aspirating. (This, we didn't know.  And damn it, I knew something was going on while she was nursing and taking pain medication, but nobody listened to me.  I'm discovering that my thoughts and instincts have been more right than I've given myself credit for.)

So at this point they are treating her aspiration into the right lung with Cpap treatments every 2 hours.  Over night she seemed to be gradually improving with increased oxygen saturation.

This morning, though, her sats are still up and blood gases pretty good, but she's working harder to breathe again.  The updated chest x-ray shows some improvement.

The main concern right now is that she has still been needing 50% or more oxygen in the cannula.  And apparently if they can't reduce that amount with good results today, she will still need to be intubated.  We're glad that the throat swelling is down after the steroids and such, but obviously intubation will probably increase that.  And they'll need to sedate her and give her a paralytic to do so.  We know that she is very sensitive to meds.  That she takes forever to wake up after sedation and that it whacks her out big time.

This morning, as I was snoozing away for 5 whole hours (a record in the last 5 days!) she was really agitated so they gave her Ativan for anxiety.  She's been pretty much out for about 3 hours  Her sats are still in the 90s, but I imagine she would be doing better if she weren't sedated.  Last night when she got agitated the nurse let me climb into her crib with her (wish I'd had a picture of that) and I was able to calm her down.  Hopefully once the Ativan wears off this can work again.  Although they are going to have to use an NG or OG tube to remove the air that's building up in her stomach and that is BOUND to piss her off.  So we'll see.

So all in all, things are looking up to a degree.  At least we know what the problems are at this point, and the treatment is helping, but just not quite fast enough.

So if you're still thinking of our girlie, any thoughts or prayers that her breathing continues to improve and that her oxygen can be weaned throughout the day would be wonderful.  So far, the love that she's been getting has definitely been making some waves.  So thank you.