Doing SOOO Much Better

Aaron is doing SOOO much better.  He's been on antibiotics for 36 hours now.  His oxygen needs are back down to his baseline. Not his baseline for this past week, his real baseline.  He's been happy and playful.  His x-ray looks better.  It's hard to believe this is the same kiddo that we brought in not even 48 hours ago.

His x-ray has also improved a lot.  In fact, enough that there has been some noise about it being at least partially a stubborn plug that we removed when I did the trach change.  That could have been obstructing part of the lung enough to cause some of the patchiness in the first x-ray.

Wednesday evening

Friday morning!

We're still pulling out blood tinged mucus, but he's only had one fever in the past 24 hours, which responded quickly to Tylenol.  He's also been happy, smiling, and singing his songs.  We're still waiting on labs to see if any bacteria (and how much and what!) grow in his blood cultures and his trach cultures.  Then we'll have to find an oral antibiotic that can take the place of his IV antibiotics.  But things are definitely looking up around here!

After seeing this x-ray, I knew we weren't going home.
Look especially at the upper right side (left lung).

This morning.  There's still some patchiness in
the upper left lung, but it's much better.
And overall, there's much more air
(black space) in both lungs.

Yep, things are definitely looking rosier around here (even if still much colder outside than I'd like).

In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men.  ~Cicero