Add this novel to your summer reading list. Its a long one. Update day 42 This mornings blood gas was once again terrible at 83 and they raised his pressure again but by this afternoon it stabilized at 65 and his settings stayed the same. The doctor put him on another diuretic to pull fluid off and hopefully this will help his berating also. We felt very defeated yesterday but today we are reminded that God has brought Brayden this far and a setback doesnt change that. We did the only thing we can do to help, we held him... For a long time... Like over 3 hours each. He does the best when we hold him. I wish we could hold him 24 hours a day. Please pray for his lungs and that in the long run the new tube benefits him. Ok that was the update before the absolute CHAOS!!! Here is the real story of the night... So David started holding Brayden at 4:30pm today and these numbers may mean nothing to a lot of you but just notice the differences in the next ones later. Morning pressures (jet pip 39, jet peep 12, rate 420, conventional pip 34, peep 12 rate 8) So back to the story. Brayden was kangarooing on David and had his normal wiggle from the jet where he just kind of vibrates (420 breaths per minute will do that to you). David asked the Respiratory therapist a question about the vent and she started messing with it and Braydens tube. All of a sudden the wiggle got so strong he was almost bouncing off Davids chest which freaked everyone out including Brayden who we couldnt console. We pushed that something wasnt normal and Brayden was put back to bed. They messed with him and nothing changed. A doctor turned the corner and the nurse grabbed him for an X-ray order. His X-ray looked great, probably better than we have ever seen. There was no sign there of a problem so we drew a blood gas. We talk about this a lot but the number we really focus on is his carbon dioxide. Remember it was 83 this morning (they like below 65 and are really happy with 50s). The new gas was 19?!?! What the heck and oh crap and all those other thoughts you are thinking! So they made changes on the vent until his wiggle was normal and waited 30 minutes and drew a new gas. It only came up to 20!!! Repeat all those thoughts we were thinking before! At this point we really need that gas back to normal. More changes and another gas a while later and we are back to 54! Whew! In the meantime Brayden drops his oxygen levels to the 40s and and theres more moments of chaos but that was resolved fairly quickly. So his new pressures are as follows (jet pip 30, peep 12, and rate 420, conventional pip 0, peep 12, and rate of 3) so the pressures we were praying for dropped from 39 to 30. We havent seen pressures this low except the first week here. The pressures will probably go back up once his gases stabilize but holy cow that was insane. So as I type this the pressures are the same as the latter and his gas was 54 which is great if it stays there but it will probably continue to climb for now. I think I covered everything. :-/ Hopefully this was a moment of his new tube showing off and opening up his lungs even more and not just an insanely crazy night. Im afraid these nurses will quit there job if they have another night with us like this. There were moments of pure fear/panic, tear/laughter, and anger/banning people from rooms (#noteverybodycandoit -sorry thats just for Haley). Ok Im tired now. Love you all!
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 04:05:43 +0000