Today was a day of massive stress and setbacks for Brendan. Over the last few days, he has been showing signs of troubles, and it all came together to cause him to fall apart today.
It started very early this morning with his high heart rate, rapid breathing and discomfort/agitation, then he could not maintain his oxygen saturation. They had to use a “muscle relaxant” which is actually a paralytic to totally freeze him so he was not able to fight against the ventilator with his rapid breathing.
That seemed to work for him most of the morning. Then they had to switch him off of the home vent machine and put him back on the hospital servo.
But early this afternoon, even in his paralyzed state, his sats started falling. The nurse had to bag him manually to keep him from dropping fast. Before I could blink, Brendan’s room was full of nurses, respiratory therapists, and doctors all struggling to do something to pull him out of his respiratory failure. His pulmonologist came right away.

Seeing a little panic on the doctor’s face while he was bagging gave me a horrible chill and I had to sit down. I was truly scared for Brendan, and had no idea why he was suddenly deteriorating rapidly before my eyes. At one point his saturations dropped in to the 30’s. Bill left work and joined me at the hospital as fast as he could.

Tuning the ventilator settings and keeping Brendan paralyzed finally brought him up to stable numbers. Blood, urine, and mucus cultures were collected to determine if there is an infection at play here causing the sudden lung issues.

Major setbacks include:
1 – Heavy sedation is once again required to keep him breathing safely
2 – Nitric Oxide has been added again and will need to be weaned
3 – The hospital level ventilator is required again
4 – His PICC line is full of IV medications again

I only took one picture right when I got there this morning, he was already frozen

He is stable for now, but the more he wakes up, the worse his numbers look.

Trevor had a better day with Gramma. I am very fortunate that I know Trevor is safe and being given love in abundance so I can be at the hospital on days of crisis like this. Thank you very much, Mom!

I miss him though. He is very good at making me smile with his cuteness.

Hopefully tomorrow will get us moving in the right direction again. Needless to say, Brendan will not be leaving the ICU for a while.