PICU

Things got a little crazy at the hospital last night.  Around 7:00, the respiratory therapist came in to do another nebulizer treatment.  The treatment caused Logan’s heart rate to rise, which is normal when being treated with albuterol.  What wasn’t normal was that his heart rate didn’t come down as quickly as it had in the past.  The doctors were also getting increasingly concerned with the effort he was putting in to breathing.  They decided to give him some supplemental oxygen.

After the oxygen therapy started (the theory was that the extra oxygen would help make it easier to breathe), it was determined that they would also start an IV and take some blood to run some tests.  I had to leave the room while the did the IV or I probably would have taken out each and every one of the people in the room.  I don’t like anyone who makes my baby cry.

They ran a test on his blood that measured the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in his system.  When you breathe in, you bring in oxygen; and when you breathe out, you exhale carbon dioxide.  Logan has had such a high respiratory rate, that he is bringing in all this oxygen, but he isn’t able to get all the carbon dioxide out.  That will affect the pH level inside the body.  He came back with a little acidosis.  There was a treatment available that consisted of administering some humidified higher-flow oxygen, but that treatment needs to be more closely monitored.

So, it was determined that Logan would be transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  We took him down the hall and they set up the new oxygen treatment along with a heart rate monitor and put him on a warmed bed to help regulate his temperature.

As you can see, he is thrilled.  They took another chest X-ray to make sure that he hasn’t developed any pneumonia…and he hasn’t.  Unfortunately, they aren’t letting me feed him currently.  He is getting fluids and nutrients through the IV.  The concern is that he is working so hard to breathe that there is the chance he could aspirate the breast milk and they didn’t want to take that chance.  So, I’ve been pumping a lot.  I guess that is one way to make sure I have a stash in the freezer when I go back to work.

Last night was a rough night.  Not only could I not hold him (the bed was warmed to help regulate his body temperature), but it was so hard to comfort him when he just wanted to nurse.  We are trying to satisfy his sucking instinct with a pacifier, but it isn’t the same…for either of us.  Because he is hooked up to so many monitors, there are a lot of beeps and alarms that go off seemingly randomly.  Every time that happened, I woke up.  Any time Logan fussed, I woke up.  And, I was trying to sleep in a recliner, so I woke up…a lot.  I finally decided to just get up shortly after 5:00 and go pump.

Around 1:30-ish, his fever went up a bit.  He hadn’t really had a fever at all through this.  I think it had gotten as high as 99.4 just before we got transferred to the PICU.  Last night, it got up to 101.something.  The nurse gave him some Tylenol and it came back down to 99.something.  Theoretically, the warming bed should be helping to keep his body temperature in the perfect range.  The nurse adjusted the temp of the bed to make sure that he didn’t get too warm.

The respiratory therapist has been in a few times doing the nebulizer treatments as well as some percussive chest thumping to work on loosening some ‘gunk’ that showed up in the right upper lobe of his lung on the X-ray last night.

I’m not sure when the doc will come through on rounds, but I am hopeful that we may be able to leave the PICU today and go back to the general Peds floor.  I am also praying that I will be able to at least hold him at some point this morning.  I really don’t like not being able to pick him up and comfort him.

They have done another blood draw this morning to check his blood gasses and see how effective the humidified oxygen treatment has been.

In other news, I’m a little nervous that my husband has to deliver mail today.  The weather is horrible.  A really nasty winter storm came through yesterday and is continuing today.  As I was watching the news this morning, they were saying that most of the roads in the area where Tim drives are impassible.  I am going to be praying that he doesn’t get stuck and that he stays safe on the roads.

I am so thankful for everyone’s prayers and well-wishes.  Please keep them coming.  I know that Logan will eventually get better.  They have been telling us from the beginning that with RSV days 3, 4, and  5 can be the worst.  Today is day four and I’m hoping we are on the down slope and that things will continue to get better from this point.