It's all ok-just bought us another night or two here. We were looking at discharge to the Yawkey house today, and headed back to KC on Monday. But Ethan heard discharge, home and Kansas City and I'm sure thought he hadn't quite kept everyone on their toes enough here yet.
He spiked a fever last night.
To most of you that doesn't sound like a big deal. To a heart kiddo post procedure or surgery it can, unfortunately, turn into a very big deal.
Does he have an infection?
Then he started having trouble breathing.
His sats were staying in the high 90's on room air-but he was wheezy, stridorous, retracting and had an increased work of breathing. He was also all mouth breathing and sounded terrible.
His feet became purple and cold again.
Then he started throwing PVC's or premature ventricular contractions-a little early beat before his normal heart beat.
Like 42 a minute.
Then he started having a bigeminy rhythm-or a PVC following every atrial beat.
Then he started having missed heart beats-where his heart was just so confused it didn't know when to beat.
Then the multiform PVC's showed up followed by VT-ventricular tachycardia-which is a pulse rate of more than 100 beats per minute with at least 3 irregular heartbeats in a row.
That will bring a whole lotta nursing staff to your room!
And to be perfectly honest-it kinda made me nervous all of this happening together at one time.
Was he just having post intubation inflammation?
Had he been exposed to something viral that manifested itself after his body was stressed out?
Is the valve still working perfectly??
Does he still need a pacemaker??
So the nurses called the resident and she came up to see the drama.
And Ethan laughed at her.
And if 4 nurses hadn't been stalking his rhythm and printed strip after strip after strip of these crazy heart rhythms-I'm sure she would have thought us all to be crazy!
So Ethan got a dose of Tylenol-2 total overnight.
Pulmicort breathing treatment.
And they added a Xopenex breathing treatment-NOT albuterol due to the cardiac side effects of it.
An extra dose of Lasix.
And drew labs.
His potassium(K) came back a little low, so they hooked him up to a dose of it to run into his tummy for an hour.
The low potassium can sometimes be the reason for the heart arrhythmia. And the EP team was hoping that to be the case, if his K level hadn't come back normal at 0630 and him still be doing this funky stuff.
The Xopenex helped his breathing overnight enough to help him sleep-somewhat. Though I'm not surprised he didn't exactly want to crash. He thought he was coming here for fun and he got woke up after 26 hours of sedation and paralytic with a tube in his throat and a hole in his groin a half inch wide with a pressure bandage on it, an IV in his right foot, left hand and an EJ-external jugular-or IV in his neck, and soft restrained to the bed.
I don't blame him being pissy at all.
Or being difficult just to show us how pissy he was!
Better news as the day has progressed.
Chest X-ray clear-no pneumonia, no aspiration, no consolidation or even atelectasis. And NO pulmonary congestion!
Fever has NOT returned.
Still sounds junky so switching to Xopenex and Flovent by inhaler tonight to see if he does ok with those instead of the nebulized meds.
Started chest PT-where they beat on his back with a pediatric face mask and instead of coughing he laughs.
And get him upright to get that gunk out. We took him for a walk and he had a couple of really good coughs and sounds a little better now.
He is having such a hard time breathing, he won't even put his hand in his mouth because he knows he can't breathe with it there! And for those of you who know how much he likes to put his right hand in his mouth-you get the severity.
Good news? No bradycardia (low heart rates) in the 30's! Lowest I've seen him today is 59, but otherwise in the 80's, or NORMAL!
For now, all is holding steady. Which is still great news. We are NOT having an open heart surgery and we are leaps and bounds ahead of where EVERYONE thought we would be at this point.
And as a very wise fellow heart mom messaged me today in my panic-
Remember, this is not a sprint, it's a marathon.
So true BCR, so true, and thanks for reminding me to chill and take it one day at a time.
Meanwhile, Dr Marx thought Ethan was acting out in protest of the leg warmers I had on him to keep his skinny little legs warm. He called it "cruel and unusual punishment".
His Daddy and Aunt Katie agreed.
I, personally, think they add to his cuteness, uniqueness and character.
That and I'm his Mom.
And I won the leg warmer argument.
What do you think?
And I so love this happy face!
And his new t-shirt.
Couldn't have said it better myself-found it in the gift shop on clearance!
Now, just pray for no more PVC's or any funky rhythms, breathing to get better and some movement in the bottom half, if ya know what I mean!
You Rock the shirt Ethan! Love it!
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