Friday, October 30, 2009

Hovercraft

Tom took the hospital shift while I spent the ENTIRE DAY making Sarah's costume. I just finished fifteen minutes ago. Granted, we did go out to dinner while S was at friends' (thank you Bill and Cathi!), but otherwise, I spent the day pricking my fingers and inhaling stray strands of faux fur. Intrigued? Don't you worry, I'll post a photo tomorrow of the finished masterpiece.

Anyway. Baby news. So, she didn't have a great day today. Breathing really hard, super fidgety all morning, oxygen up pretty high (68% or so) and rotten blood gas (CO2 at 75%, which is sucky indeed). You know how you can tell it's a good day at the ICN when you're pretty much ignored by everyone? Well, Janey was the subject of lots of conversations and the medical types spent a good bit of time at her bedside, trying to figure out what was up.

Awesome RT Richard, the ICN's Man in Black, convinced the attending (who, by the way, was very decent about acknowledging his mistake in pushing for the nitric wean earlier in the week) to leave Jane's rate alone and bump the pressure setting back up to 11, where it was a few days ago. They did another blood gas in the afternoon, and her CO2 shot right down to 50-something. (Tom, Richard and Awesome Nurse Donna exchanged high fives when they read the numbers. Hee.) When we called in tonight at 9, Jane was resting well and her oxygen had gone down to 54%.

Oh, and they did a chest x-ray (which she did NOT enjoy -- Richard described keeping her still as being like "wrestling a bobcat"), which showed an overinflated lobe that's being a pain. It is actually working really well, so well that the rest of the lung is underperforming. Another thing to keep an eye on. Add it to the list.

Oh, and Dr. Brusque stopped by to do another eye exam (because he was around? for the hell of it? because he thinks Jane's too cute to ignore? the reason wasn't clear), and he saw no change again.

My mom's coming up to visit Jane tomorrow and Sarah's totally wrecking everything by having a decidedly inconvenient cough. The missed photo op! Tragedy! Now I'm going to have to set up a totally fake Halloween when Sarah's better just to satisfy you people and your need for cute kid pictures. The things I do for you invisible readers. I tell you.

2 comments:

mommatosena said...

Thanks for sharing all your heartbreaks and joys as Jane grows and heals and can't wait to see what costume you have created for Sarah! Yeah for dinners out with out kids....what was that like...did you sit and talk about the kids the whole time...and how do we trick this lobe into not being an over achiever and being a team player? Sending prayers and healing thoughts as always!

Cindy said...

Wishing you all a fun day, even though there are some of the pesky medical issues intruding still. One great thing about girls is that every day is like Halloween there is so much dressing up... I, for one, am always up for photo ops.

What nice friends you have, in addition to totally cute kids. Wishing you more of all the good stuff.