Update from Keith: September 17, 2008

Tuesday was another long day for Taylor. She remains in the PICU.

She seemed OK for most of the day but she still has breathing issues. She received various medicines to assist with her blood clotting deficiency and the doctors decided to put in a chest tube this evening to drain some of the fluid in her chest.

I watched the chest tube insertion. They did it here in her PICU bed (she received strong doses of Ketamine and had no real idea of what was happening). They drained more than 200 cc's of yellowish fluid from her chest. It went off to the lab for testing.

As soon as they were finished, Taylor was in extreme discomfort. It's the worst I've ever seen her. Every breath was pained and accompanied by a moan/grunt. She thrashed about as she tried to find a comfortable position. She was literally writhing in pain.

They increased her Dilaudid substantially to help her cope. Finally, after an hour or two of pain she seemed a little better and first Grandma and (later) Nana read to her. Late tonight they decided to remove more fluid. They got another 90cc's before the pain was too much for Taylor to bear. She has now (It's 1:15 am, Wednesday morning) settled into a listless sleep, soft moans accompanying most breaths.

Her heart rate was elevated much of the evening and night but has settled back to 115 which is a good resting rate for Taylor. She is on constant oxygen and her saturation remains good because of it. I'll feel better, though, when the act of breathing does not cause so much pain that she's forced to utter these unconscious wails. I don't think sleep is in my forecast.

I hope she stabilizes tomorrow. The tube will remain until the fluid goes away. I can't tell if they'll release us upstairs before then. The good news is that her fevers have stopped (at least for now). If her breathing problems resolve and her fevers stay away, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to go home before her next chemo a week from Friday. In the meantime, we are await the dawn of day 35 on this hospital stay, now only hours away.

2 comments:

Kori said...

Your constant strength is an inspiration to me; I have been thinking about and praying for all of you for a long time now, and I will continue to do so.

Unknown said...

K&K, Dan Cunningham here. I've been following your blog for a long time and I'm so sorry Taylor is having such a struggle. You two are remarkable for your resilience and Taylor is lucky to have you both as parents. Don't forge to take care of yourselves too.