Day 16 Update: Ethan did pretty good through the night, relative to the current situation. He did had a big pee around 10PM but not a whole lot since then... Maybe 1 ml then 2, and then 1 ml. Typically, they would want to see about 0.5ml/kg/hour. For Ethan this would be about 0.32ml/hr... He gets a change about every 3-4 hours... assuming 4 hours, wed want a couple grams (1 gram = 1 ml). The fact that he is so swollen and loaded with fluids, wed still want to see something closer to 2 grams, consistently. They did get the blood culture back and confirmed he does have staph (already known) but *not* MRSA (a certain type of staph thats not the best should you get staph). This is definitely some good news as the MRSA is more resistant to antibiotics. The medications that he has gotten so far are the right ones. My oldest sister, Carol, is here and that has been awesome. Shes a pharmacist and has been really on top of things from the medication perspective. Its comforting to see when the doctors and she agree on the approach. The doctor also brought in the Infectious Disease person and they are also in agreement with the current direction. At this time, he is stable. His oxygen needs have dropped a lot which is fantastic. The biggest reason for having to move from the ventilator to the oscillator is that he was on 100% oxygen on the vent but his saturation was still dropping. His oxygen saturation now is in the 90s and the oxygen levels has been in the low 30s (room air is 21% oxygen). They may look to do the spinal tap later today... he is still a bit weak but well see how the day goes. This ought to help determine meningitis or not. It can sometimes take up to 48 hours for confirmation but initial results can show signs of meningitis (e.g., if the fluids have protein, sugar, or bacteria present). He is also getting dopamine to help raise his blood pressure a bit. Indications of responding well to the antibiotics are that his blood pressure raises and he continues to pee. If those two things happen, they can start to reduce the dopamine since he is demonstrating the ability to keep the blood pressure at appropriate levels on his own. I dont mean to damper things but at the same time, he is still in a critical state... he is no where near his state on Saturday... but at least he is heading the appropriate direction. Thank you all so much.... again, still a bit of a step back but at least the dip in this roller coaster ride is taking a steady decline. I just hope the next dip (realistically, there will be one sometime) is only a minor one. Not sure our heart and stomach can take another big one like this.... Again, thank you all so much for the continued support and prayers. Ethan is a strong boy but I promised him last night that he is not alone. #EthanStrong
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:08:30 +0000
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