Swollen Piggies

Lying sideways in bed, becaue of course,
that's the most comfortable way.

6:30 a.m.  Still no change.  He was so agitated last night that we finally gave Ativan to help him through it.  After that, we started piggybacking Tylenol & Motrin.  I think I’m going to ask for a trach culture and VRP this morning.  I need to check on the BMP they pulled last night and they’re also going to redo his BNP and see where that’s gone.  I can’t think of anything else.

Right foot, what you can see is the top of his foot
where it is trying to swell out of the cast.

10:30 a.m. – There doesn’t seem to be a need to recheck his BNP (measures heart stress), so we’re not going to do that.  But he is showing some signs of dehydration, so now he’s getting a fluid bolus.  They’re also going to pull some extended blood work and a viral panel and trach aspirate.  This morning we discovered that his feet (or what we can see of them) are really swollen.  So ortho has been paged to come back and take another look.  It may be that his body fluids are distributed funny, swollen in his feet and dry elsewhere.  There’s a name for it but I can’t remember now.  So we’re still looking.  Not much chance of being sprung today, but IF his virus panel comes back positive for something like the common cold and IF we can resolve the swelling in his feet, we may be out tomorrow.  Hoping, hoping….

Left foot trying to swell out the top.