July 20, 2009

Gabe has continued to fight the oscillator through the night and the staff has had to continually give increasing dosages of Morphine and Versed. I asked the doctor during rounds today if it could be possible that he is experiencing increased pain because the tumors were getting bigger. She said she didn’t think so because his abdominal measurements weren’t getting any larger. It has been over a week since the last ultrasound and doctor “C” said she would most likely repeat the ultrasound this week. I found out today that they cannot do the bronchoscopy if he is on the oscillator. He must be on the traditional ventilator if we are going to do this procedure. This means they must slowly lower his airway pressure over the next few days below 11, right now he is at 12.5. The problem is that he is not tolerating the lower pressures that well. They will come down and then have to go back up again because his oxygen saturation will go down and his CO2 will go up. It’s frustrating to say the least because the traditional ventilator is going to make the biggest difference for him. The other option was to completely paralyze him but they don’t want to consider this right now since his numbers have been doing so well. Hopefully we can safely get those numbers down and get him to the regular ventilator soon so we can get an MRI and find a cause of the hydrops. They are not planning on taking him off the steroids just yet because he still really needs them. Another worry is that Gabe’s ART (arterial) line isn’t working that great and they will have a difficult time finding another spot since he has run out of room for lines. Nurse “A” is doing a great job taking care of little man and know he is in good hands today while Shan and I head home for a few hours to drop Kayla off.
Update – Just left the hospital and our wonderful nurse “L” is looking after little man and he is hanging in there. His numbers are still holding strong and they are lowering some of his ventilator settings. We just found out that his left lung is completely collapsed. They have been working so hard over the past week to re-inflate this lung but it just doesn’t want to work for us. Doctor “J” said that they don’t have any more options except the bronchoscopy. However, it’s of course just not that easy. They must first get him on the traditional ventilator and he must be stable on it for them to attempt the bronch. They had contemplated putting him on the traditional ventilator tonight but held off until possibly tomorrow. Doctor “J” is wonderful and is strongly recommending to the day shift that Gabe needs a bronch sooner than later. So we shall see tomorrow morning at the doctors patient rounds what the plan is. Also found out tonight that Gabe has an ultrasound to look at the two tumors on his liver and see how they are looking.

Shannon and I got as special treat tonight as well. Gabe opened both his eyes and kept them open for the longest time. We were able to talk to him and look into his eyes, it was amazing for us. It brought tears to my eyes to be able to do this for once. He was actually calmed by seeing us, hearing us and feeling us rub his little head. I found his "spot" that he likes on his head. When you rub him right above his right eye, he calms down and starts to fall asleep. If you stopped he would look up at you like "hey, why did you stop?". Very amazing moment for Shannon and I.
Please keep Gabe in your prayers and thoughts, the next few days are going to be big for the little man.