Well THAT was a close one. I can’t tell you how close we were to going back to the PICU at New York Presbyterian tonight. So close, in fact, that the PICU just decided to come to us! For some reason, after about 30 minutes of being here, Eli started breathing extremely rapidly. About 50-60 respirations instead of the normal 20! He looked very frightened and it seemed like he couldn’t catch his breath. I asked him if he was scared and he nodded yes, but there was nothing we could do to calm him down. They were trying everything they could think of to get him to breathe normally, but nobody seemed to know exactly why he was acting that way. One theory is that they weaned him off the Valium too quickly. Another theory was that it was anxiety, but Lacey and I wrote that one off because the kid has been through a LOT in the last 3 months and has always stayed as cool as a cucumber. I don’t think the nice new private room threw him into a panic attack. The theory that I think was closer to the truth was that he had a mucus clog that was blocking his airway. They took an xray to make sure his left lung was still ok and it was, so that was a relief. Dr. LaQuaglia gave a few suggestions to try (including removing the remaining tubes in his nose which were restricting his nasal airflow) and said, “If that doesn’t work, you’re taking a ride back over to the PICU.” We were trying desperately to get him to cough, yell, and spit out anything in his throat.
The doctor on call from the PICU across the street came over and tried some things with the Sloan nurses including Chest PTs, suction, and new meds. Interesting side note, she got her medical degree from the University of Iowa and knew Dr. Loew. 🙂 What they ended up doing was putting Eli on a BiPAP machine, which is what they normally do after extubation. However, Eli was doing so well he didn’t really need it. A BiPAP basically pushes air into the lungs forcefully so he has to breathe at the rate the machine wants him to breathe. It is usually a mask that goes over the face, but Eli would have none of that, so they used the option of the nose tubes. He was a bit sedated, so it quickly took over his breathing and got him down to the normal 20 respiration range. When he woke up, he fought it a bit, but realized he was much calmer if he just let it help him breathe. He will probably be on the machine for the rest of the night, but they will wean him back off of it tomorrow.
I don’t think Eli’s heart rate was the only thing sky high. Lacey and I had just gotten used to the idea of not being in the PICU anymore and then had a moment scarier than any we had over there! The Pediatric Observation Unit – or POU for short, and yes that is pronounced poo 🙂 – is really nice here. However, they only have 3 rooms! They are private, really big, and have a nice pull out couch. They also let each parent have a plate from food service for each meal (did you hear that UofI? :-)) and serve things like Maryland Crab Cakes and Sautéed Chicken Francaise. The nurse practitioner joked, “Welcome to Hotel Sloan.” Nice accommodations indeed, but even so we don’t plan on staying any longer than we absolutely have to. They actually want us getting Eli up to walk tomorrow, so we’ll try to make some trips to the playroom if we can, which he seemed to be up for when we asked him.
So, just when we start to get comfortable, God seems to say, “Hey, you’re still counting on Me, right?” Every single day.