Wild Wednesday

No pictures today- he had more tubes than I wanted to remember. The day of not so great news started at 3:30 am (I am slightly crazy and call in every two or three hours, 24 hours a day). So at that time he had just been extibated (they had to take his tube out, because it slipped into the wrong location) and then re-intibated. This isn't the most comfortable experience so he was pretty agitated. He eventually rebounded to stable again by morning. His hematicrit and hemoglobin were low again so he received platelets. They said that they could be low because of how often they pull blood to run cultures and blood gas tests.

Shortly after my 9:30am call in, he started to have seizure activity and his vitals were dropping. They called us to tell us this- and that they had given him meds to calm him down. I got down there as fast as I could......and then they dropped more bombs. They said that the head circumference looked larger which could indicate swelling and the seizures could mean more bleeding. They ordered head ultrasounds and an EEG to measure brain activity. They proceeded to say a bunch of scary things I won't repeat and then we just had to wait it out. The EEG really pissed him off. They had to put 8 electrodes on his head, they don't hurt but they had to scrub the head and then tape them on. His little forehead was all scrunched up and mouth open- he was trying to cry but can't b/c of the tube in his throat. The electrodes will stay on for 24 hours, so tomorrow when we go down they will have that done. They are basically looking for any abnormalities in brain activity. If they don't find any- they mentioned the possibility of doing a spinal tap to check the spinal fluid for infection. As if all of that wasn't enough, they had an IV slip out during the time they gave blood which means blood seeped into the tissue so his arm swelled up and he has a huge bruise. The only good news we ended up with today- was that the head ultrasound did come back this evening and it shows no change. No more bleeding or swelling. Now they just have to figure out what the seizures are about.