The Roller Coaster Ride
The next few days were like a roller coaster ride. The doctors would turn one thing up and then another down, and maybe a few hours later back up or down. Dylon began to get very swollen so he was started on Lasix. The Doctors started a continuous EEG, because of the concern of seizures. Due to the paralysis caused by vecuronium there would be no eye movement clues of seizures.
Wednesday, February 17, 1999 (Day 7) things begin to get worse. The nurse came and got me from the waiting room around 6:00 a.m. They had to turn up Dylon’s oxygen to 60% and his peep back to 18. Within hours he was turned up to 80% oxygen and a peep of 20. His pulse ox was still reading in the lower 80’s.
The doctors decided the conventional ventilator just was not working and it was time to try something else.
I knew what was coming because the same thing had happened two years ago when Dylon was hospitalized with the same problems.
They first mixed Nitric Gas with his oxygen to help oxygenate him. In a very short time they found this was not going to work. The next step was to place him on the oscillator. Then they did a x-ray to make sure the tube was in the correct place. After the x-ray, we got to go back into PICU see Dylon. When Dr. Moss was telling me she thought the current treatment was going to work this time when x-ray called. They saw what looked like an air leak in the lungs. She rushed down to take a look, then came back and placed Dylon’s first ever chest tube.
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