Good News, Bad News

The good news is, his blood is boring.  It's just sitting there, growing nothing, being very unproductive in the lab.  And it's been over 36 hours now, so we're in the clear on that one.  The bad news is, he's demanding more and more oxygen.  Yep, it's his drug of choice, and as far as that goes, it's a pretty good one.  But needing so much?  Yeah, maybe not so good.

7:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 24^th.

The Elders just stopped by to see if we needed something.  I asked them to give him a priesthood blessing.  I am so grateful for the power of the priesthood in our lives, for the tender mercies of the Lord. It was a beautiful, simple blessing that brought tears to my eyes and comfort to my heart. 

It’s a little hard right now.  I had anticipated going home this morning, and then last night his blood cultures grew out staph and it was too soon to be able to label it as a skin contaminant.  But it’s now been more than 24 hours and so far, nothing is growing, so we should be able to go home tomorrow.  Except he’s spent most of the day needing 4+ liters of oxygen.  And for the last two hours he’s been at six or more.  So now I’m beginning to doubt tomorrow. 

It’s 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 25^th, and we’re not going home today.  He’s asleep right now, finally.  He’s been up with just some scattered naps for most of the past two days.  He’s sooooo tired, but keeps waking himself with coughing.   His blood hasn’t grown out anything yet, and it’s been over 36 hours.   So I think we can cross that off our list, but his oxygen, it’s not looking so great.  He was on six liters all night, just to maintain low 90’s sats.  Now he’s in the mid 90’s, but we had to bump him to eight liters an hour ago.  This is not trending in the right direction.  So instead of packing for home, I’m hoping we stay right here.  Because if we don’t, it will be because we’ve been shipped back downstairs to the PICU.  I wish I knew what was going on inside him, why it is that he’s not processing his oxygen right.  But I’m also really glad we didn’t go home yesterday. 

And as always, we’ll keep trying to figure things out.  There’s something more going on, not sure what, but we’ll figure it out and move forward.

On occasion we need to make a second effort - and a third effort, and a fourth effort, and as many degrees of effort as may be required to accomplish what we strive to achieve. -Thomas S. Monson