Will continued to have a pretty good day and evening, getting more incident-free time to recover from Monday morning. As of this writing, they have yet to tap the area around his lung again, which means he's up to 36 hours and counting. Again, it's a little early to declare the octreotide a success, but I must admit we'll be ecstatic if that proves to be the case. The more hurdles he can get out of the way, the better.
He did give me a scare this morning. I stopped in first thing before work to see him, and he was sleeping quietly. I went in to say good morning and stuck my finger in the palm of one hand to see if he'd grab on. He did, hard, which seemed to tell me he was hurting a bit. He went from being quiet and still to being fairly agitated, dropping his oxygen a bit. I took my hand away and tried to whisper a bit to comfort him. He calmed down, but in a few minutes he grew agitated again and started waving his arms around. His oxygen dropped off more quickly this time, and his nurse turning the flow up to 100 percent didn't bring him back up. She called for the doctors, who immediately filled the room, flipped the lights on high and grabbed the equipment to bag him. That brought him back up immediately. His heartrate never dropped off, and they said it seemed like was just mad and was clamped down and refusing to breathe just long enough to keep the ventilator from doing its job. If anything, they said, it was kind of a good sign, because kids who are really sick don't have the energy to do that. I was worried that I was going to get to witness a repeat of Monday, but it turned out to be something only slightly worse than what we've seen many times before. The reassuring thing was the quick response. It was a matter of seconds before he had the best the NICU has to offer hunched over his bed working on him. It's good to know they're that close.
So, as usual, we wait. Will the fluid around the lung dry up? Will he continue to recover from Monday morning? Will he lose that puffiness that keeps his eyes swollen shut? With time, all of those things will happen. We've learned to be more patient that we ever could have dreamed, and to do so with Will's health, the one thing that makes us more worried, frustrated and crazy than any other. As usual, he spends most of that time sleeping, resting up for the next challenge.
He did give me a scare this morning. I stopped in first thing before work to see him, and he was sleeping quietly. I went in to say good morning and stuck my finger in the palm of one hand to see if he'd grab on. He did, hard, which seemed to tell me he was hurting a bit. He went from being quiet and still to being fairly agitated, dropping his oxygen a bit. I took my hand away and tried to whisper a bit to comfort him. He calmed down, but in a few minutes he grew agitated again and started waving his arms around. His oxygen dropped off more quickly this time, and his nurse turning the flow up to 100 percent didn't bring him back up. She called for the doctors, who immediately filled the room, flipped the lights on high and grabbed the equipment to bag him. That brought him back up immediately. His heartrate never dropped off, and they said it seemed like was just mad and was clamped down and refusing to breathe just long enough to keep the ventilator from doing its job. If anything, they said, it was kind of a good sign, because kids who are really sick don't have the energy to do that. I was worried that I was going to get to witness a repeat of Monday, but it turned out to be something only slightly worse than what we've seen many times before. The reassuring thing was the quick response. It was a matter of seconds before he had the best the NICU has to offer hunched over his bed working on him. It's good to know they're that close.
So, as usual, we wait. Will the fluid around the lung dry up? Will he continue to recover from Monday morning? Will he lose that puffiness that keeps his eyes swollen shut? With time, all of those things will happen. We've learned to be more patient that we ever could have dreamed, and to do so with Will's health, the one thing that makes us more worried, frustrated and crazy than any other. As usual, he spends most of that time sleeping, resting up for the next challenge.
posted by John Kenyon at 10:35 PM
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