Back in the Hospital

Braden has had a very rough week, and not surprisingly, since mommy and daddy have intermittently been fighting off allergies and sinus issues the past week too. He has required around the clock care, not leaving much sleep for anyone.

Yesterday afternoon he was requiring day-long oxygen at a high setting, was working extra hard to breathe with deep retractions and recovery breaths. After two days of him not responding with enough energy to muster a cough on his own, and general lethargy, we thought it was time to bring him in, as a fever spike was the last straw.

Last night we were admitted to the floor, as chest x-rays and labs were inconclusive. About 3:00 am this morning, he started in again on the labored breathing, and threw the floor staff a "blue episode". They bagged him (used the manual rescue breathing bag you've seen on all hospital shows) to bring his O2 sats back up (oxygen saturation). This episode made the floor crew a little uncomfortable (mind you, not out of the normal for us, though, especially when we don't feel good), so we have been moved to the PICU, our normal "hang out" at Our Lady of the Lake.

Right now we are trying everything to keep him off of the ventilator, but if he doesn't improve, that's where we are headed. They took a blood gas which showed his Carbon Dioxide up around the 200 level which is sky-high and means he is not moving enough oxygen well, as normal range would be 20 - 35, and a high reading would be 100. The only reason we are not ventilated right now, is our history with difficulty coming OFF the vent. The doctor (who is familiar with our case) said that if it were anybody else, we'd already be on the vent. Some great quick-thinking by our PICU nurse who had only seen him for about 45 minutes, suggested we put him on CPAP, and that's the machine you see in the picture. Now Braden and Papa Tom have a machine in common, since Papa Tom sleeps with a CPAP machine at night.


Update: 7 am
Blood gases came back MUCH closer to normal (the carbon dioxide & PH together confirmed improvement in his condition), so the CPAP is working!!! :-) (this means we can stay off the ventilator for now).

The other picture is of another version of "the vest" therapy, this one is the hospital's, it's a little bit different than ours so I thought I would share.

Please pray that Braden shows quick improvement, and that we will get to bring him home quickly. We will update when we have NEW news to share, but sometimes in the hospital, it could be a day or two before change comes.

Our love to you & yours,
The Wilson's