A Bump in the Road

Yesterday was a good day, a wonderful day, considering the circumstances. Ethan was slowly being weened from support, his swelling had gone down significantly, saturations were in the high 90's, and they were talking about extubating in the morning. We had friends, Jevon and Michelle, drive up to visit and take us for lunch and then my dad met us at the RMDH for dinner. As I said it was a good day and things were looking up.

Today was not a good day. Early in the morning Ethan's blood pressure rose and his saturations went into the low 80's. They had to increase his breathing settings from 16 bpm to 50 bpm. They had to do suctioning on his breathing tube more frequently than before (they were getting more secretions). They did an X-ray and saw fluid on the lungs. The on-call Dr referred to them as "wet lungs", my advice- don't google. This was not the news I wanted to hear when I went to visit today. I was hoping for an extubated baby that I'd be able to hold and play with again.

Mike had left last night to go back to work today so I was alone when they told me what was happening. When I called Mike to break the news to him he only had more questions. Questions that I didn't want to ask. Someone once told me not to ask questions that I didn't really want answers to. Like "how serious is this?" or "will my child die?"

Those were the questions I had to ask today.

The answers? 'It is very serious especially in Ethan's critical state, but not as serious as the rhythm and function issues he was having two to three days before. We have to find the cause or underlying issue of the fluid on the lungs to know how to treat it. For now we will call it a bump in the road.'

The doctor thinks it could be a few things. As I mentioned in my last post the echo showed that Ethan's heart function is as it should be. What the echo does not show is the relaxing function of the heart. They see that it is squeezing properly but would not know without a cardiac catheterization what the resting pressure is like.

Or

It could be that the scimitar that was corrected has already built up scar tissue and the blood from the lungs is backing up.

Or

It could be an infection that antibiotics could cure.

Or

It could be that being on bypass so long has affected his organs and perhaps thyroid therapy could help.

I am praying that this will just pass on its own and that no more surgical intervention is required. Please pray with me. Please also understand if I don't return calls right away. It's hard to relive it over and over again with everyone by phone. (reason for the blog)

Heart hugs to all!