Quick Update

Aaron has been sick now since Saturday.  Because he should have been doing better, I tried to pull back on his fever/pain medications so he wasn't getting them round the clock every four hours.  Once again, I forgot to ask him his opinion.  No dice.

By 5:30, seven hours after his last Motrin and skipping the Tylenol in between, he had had it.  He started in with his fever again and was desatting.  I gave him the Motrin quickly, turned his oxygen up, and started doing chest therapy.  He wasn't impressed.  We ended up bagging him on ten liters and also giving him albuterol at the same time.

Now, some have sometimes accused me of being stubborn.  Apparently, I've passed on a little bit of this to him, and he wasn't cooperating with what we were trying.  Last thing on the list to try was a trach change.  So while William continued to bag, I got the trach ready.  Got it done and pulled out a big, fairly thick plug.

Once everything calmed down and the Motrin and albuterol had time to work, he settled back down.  Still a little uneasy, I called a friend who's also a doctor to talk things over.  Frankly, as long as he had his fever medication every four hours, he was looking pretty good, not great, not where he usually is, but okay.

She suggested that because it's Aaron, because he can tip so easily, I should take him in.  Plus, about a half hour after that trach change, we started pulling blood out of his lungs, over and over and over.  I made sure they knew at American Fork Hospital that if it looked viral, if it didn't look like some kind of bacteria, we were going home.

First thing was an x-ray.  I knew when I saw that that we weren't going home. There was a fairly large white patch in his upper left lung.  Their diagnosis: pneumonia.

This morning, he still looks pretty good, as long as he gets his fever meds.  We started in the PICU, but are transferring to the floor pretty soon.  He's on IV antibiotics and most of his labs are still pending.  But overall, since he looks okay, I'm hopeful that this will be one of his shorter stays.