Another Holiday in the Big House

Ready to roll yesterday morning.

It's been a busy two weeks.  Soccer games, last day of school, start of summer, you know, the good stuff.  We've also dealt with asthma (a LOT!) and a cold.  I've started in on some of the things that were put off while working, and maybe I'll get around to posting about them some time, or maybe not.  Sorry, that's just kinda how life is going right now.  I get these awesome (in my own mind) thoughts about posting and then it just doesn't quite make it out of the brain and into reality.

Cutest elephant in the jungle.

Anyway, here we are.  And "here" is back in the Hotel on the Hill.  NOT in my plans for this weekend, at all.  I mentioned he'd caught a cold.  We started seeing signs of it on Monday, but really, he weathered things pretty well.  Thursday afternoon was rough, really rough, but again, we managed to make it through with lots of suctioning and albuterol, and a few bagging episodes.  Thursday night was okay, and Friday was much better.  So I figured we'd take a few extra precautions and heading out on Saturday would work.

Saying goodby to a beloved teacher who is retiring. 

Initially, it did.  William's mom had asked him to take flowers to various family member's graves in three different cemeteries.  We started in mid-Salt Lake and then moved to the Salt Lake Cemetery with plans to continue on to Logan where his Dad's family plot is.  He needed a little more oxygen after an hour or so, but nothing too out of the ordinary, so I didn't even give it a thought except to revise how soon we'd need to switch O2 tanks.  I had plenty with us, so no problem.

But then we stopped for hot dogs before leaving Salt Lake.  And Aaron must have looked out and realized how close we were to one of his favorite places.  All of a sudden, he was in the 70's instead of high 80's.  I did some interventions, and nothing.  Did a few more with the same results.  I switched him back to his ventilator in hopes of opening him up a bit.  Um, yeah, try 60's instead of 70's.  (Someone wasn't reading his script.)

View from Salt Lake City Cemetery

So I pulled out the bag and started bagging him.  It still took about 15 minutes to get him back into the mid-80's.  I told William he needed to drop us off at the hospital and continue without us.  Andrew took over bagging while we drove, kinda like he did just over a year ago.  He's a pretty awesome big brother.

Hanging in the ER.

Once we got here, they called a "red patient admit" again.  Hate hearing that, and knowing that means they're rallying the forces 'cause he's in trouble.  Glad they're all there, don't get me wrong, hate that they're needed urgently.  It still took a while (probably only 15-20 minutes, but still) to get him stabilized.  Did x-rays, ran labs, it looks like the rhino is still the culprit, although he's really not too symptomatic.

For a while last night, it looked like he might end up on the higher hospital vent with a percentage of oxygen flowing instead of the rate of oxygen that we use, but he did manage to avoid it.  He had a pretty good night.  In fact, the team is pretty certain it's time to send him to the floor.  I'm very leary of that plan, and I've weighed in.  They still want to move forward.  I guess we'll see what happens, right?

Life keeps throwing me curve balls and I don't even own a bat.

At least my dodging skills are improving.

Jayleigh Cape