Magic Mountain

Today's post is called Magic Mountain, because today was the craziest roller coaster yet. We got in today at noon and left at six thirty. We had to hang around because they were running a whole bunch of tests and they asked us to stick around. So what they told us earlier was because of his blood pressure being all over the place and his oxygenation being all over the place- they suspected something bigger was wrong. He also developed a new problem which is that his hematicrit and hemoglobin were really low- so they had to give him platelets. They told us that they gave him blood and his blood levels were still low and were very concerned. Also a series of bad blood gas tests (which measure how well he converts oxygen to CO2). They said that they thought the bleeding in the brain was getting worse OR he has a perforation in the gut which would require a very scary surgery OR it's a blood infection. None of these options were good, but we sat and waited and prayed for an infection (isn't that weird).

So several hours later what they told us is that 1) the bleeding in the brain is regressing (good) and the swelling that was in the brain is also regressing (good), 2) the gut x-ray looked "great" so no surgery......and his blood cultures for the infection came back negative. So seriously, I am at a loss! They said that since everything came back negative the cause of all those problems could very well just be from the infection we already KNOW he has (yeast in the lungs). His chest x-rays looked better too, the chest tube is helping. They redid all of the blood cultures to check for other infections.....oh yeah and he also has a bit of a staph infection in his arm from an IV. He's on three different antibiotics, so we're hoping those will work and that this infection isn't viral because if it is- they can't do anything. No pictures today, he finally got a day off of the lights and we wanted to let him rest since he was getting poked and messed with all day.