7/26/2006 Wednesday Day #3 Past Accident

            Dad, Aunt Kathy and I are on our way to the hospital.  Last night was the first night was the first night I went home since you have been in the hospital.  I was comfortable enough that you were stable, not going to have any surgeries, or major procedures done so I went home. 

            Every morning the Trauma team has “walking rounds” and invites the family to be at the bedside while the team discusses your case.  I am praying for another good day.  Today’s report your condition is:

• You continued to “buck” the endotracheal tube last night and you had trouble maintaining your oxygen saturation.
• So today the Trauma team told us they would need to put the tracheal tube in through your neck.  You would be more comfortable.
• You also spiked a fever last night to where they needed to put a cooling blanket on your body. 
• The team needed to start checking where the source of the fever came from.  They did a Bronchoscopy (video into your lungs to find any insult to the lungs) to lavage (clean out) the lungs and send samples for culture.  You had an area in left lower lobe and an area behind your heart that was hazy on your Chest X-Ray.  They also want to do a CT scan of your chest and belly to make sure you don’t have any problems (more) there.
• Your chest tube in the right lung was pulled last night and you tolerated that well.
• You are still tolerating your feeding via the tube. 
• Orthopedic doctor is going to undress your left in your left to make sure the wound on the bottom of your foot is healing and not getting infected.
• A research team for antibiotics signed you up to be a candidate for a new antibiotic as a test case.  We thought you would like being in research. – Unfortunately after running test your liver enzymes cam back too high and it kicked you out of the research study…oh well!

7/26/2006 End of Day Report

Well…today was a rough day. 

·         You had your tracheal tube placed in your neck. 

·         Had a Bronchoscopy to check your lungs they lavaged (cleaned) out your lungs and sent samples of the washings to the lab for culture.  You had an area on the left lower lobe so they started you on three antibiotics

o       Vancomycin

o       Tobraycin

o       Imipenim

·         After the bronch they took you down for a CT of your chest and abdomen to rule out any other source of infection. 

·         They tried to reduce and discontinue the sedation again but you became very agitated and then would not maintain your oxygen saturation it would hover around 88% - 90% and they want you at 92% or above so they started you back on the sedative and increased your ventilation oxygen %.

·         They remover your Nasal gastric tube (tube in your nose that went into your stomach) because they weren’t getting anymore out your stomach.  When you first came in they were getting out old blood from what you swallowed at the scene of the accident to the hospital.  We can check that off as a success.

·         By late afternoon you spiked a fever again 103 degrees.  They placed cooling blankets on you, both under and over you to get your temperature down, since Tylenol suppository and ibuprofen weren’t brining it done.

·         You also had your esophagus probed to make sure you did not have a tear as the team saw air around your chest bone.  That procedure showed you did not have a tear or leak in the esophagus.  We spoke to your orthopedic/trauma physician who indicated he thought we could fuse your ankle and heel bones and ask you when you were alert and oriented if you could feel the bottom of your left foot in about 10 days.  The deciding factor it should like is whether you keep your foot is whether you have feeling on the bottom or not.  Your right foot does not have any broken bones, which is good news because that means you can bear weight on that foot and won’t need to have a wheelchair when you leave the hospital.  You can use crutches. This is very exciting!  I have to say I am weary tonight.  It is so hard watching you struggle to breath or move or come out of sedation.  As a parent if I could take that struggle on for you, if I could take the pain away, and if I could suffer for you I would do it instantly.  I know you will come back to us and I know you will do it on your own time!   I love you!