Saturday, November 11, 2006

An exhausting day...

Nate had tons of gunk in his throat and chest this morning when Jen arrived at the PICU. He really struggled until we did his breathing treatment, got the VEST on him and then did the Cough Machine. The first set of coughs brought up a huge plug / gob of nasty stuff. It is scary and quite gross to see what comes up out of his lungs when doing the Cough Machine but it is for the best. If that stuff was to stay in his lungs, it would only cause more problems. The VEST and the Cough Machine really wear him out but it really does help him so much. We get a lot of stuff up with each set of coughs and stuff continues to drain out even after coughing him while he is lying on his side.

Our routine has been to cough him after every breathing treatment and to also do saline breathing treatments to help keep his nasal passages as moist as possible. Every time we cough him, we have one of the PICU nurses ready to bag him in case his airway gets blocked again. Sheila did have to bag him briefly after the 4:00PM cough session because a big, thick plug was in the back of his throat and he choked on it. Jen was able to suction it out and his color returned quickly.

The best part of his day was the bath that he got! Jen and I gave him a full body bath / rubdown and he really enjoyed it. It took us about an hour to do everything but it was well worth it to see the smiles on his face as we did it. He smells good and looks good for any of the cute nurses that might happen to walk by…

He had a number of visitors today…Jenny, his night nurse, was working at St. John last night so she stopped by this morning when her shift was over. Denise, another of his night nurses, was working at St. John today, also stopped by for a quick visit. Jill and Hall came up for a visit as did Grandpa Jody and Judy, who drove into Tulsa to see the little guy. Miss Sue stopped by one her way to lunch then came back to spend some time with him this evening so Mom & Dad to come home at a decent hour. I really think he was glad to see us leave because that meant no one was going to cough him anymore!

Dr. Carey said that while this morning’s chest x-ray looked bad, it did look better than yesterday’s x-ray. We all feel that he is headed in the right direction but it will be a long, slow march.

As always, we thank you for your prayers & support!

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