It didn’t seem like it was going to be a bad day this morning. I woke up feeling better, Trevor seemed to be in a good mood, and Brendan had an “OK” night but he was on his normal oxygen in the morning and his numbers were ok.

He just started to decline quickly. As each hour of the day went by, I had to keep turning up his oxygen. He started to visibly work harder to breathe. By 11am, I had pulled out the ventilator for him to try to give his body a chance to rest and recover. It didn’t help much.

By the time Bill got home from work, I was really scared by the amount of force it was taking for Brendan to exhale and his oxygen needs were too high. He looked miserable and tired, he couldn’t sleep even though that is all he wanted to do. We knew we had to go in.

Arriving at the ER, they immediately classed him as a “Level I” and rushed him to a “resus” room. The stabilized him pretty quickly with some breathing treatments and extra oxygen. Then they traumatized him with a chest xray, starting an IV, and doing nasal swabs. It took a long time for him to calm down. The xray showed no sign of pneumonia but it did show some hyperinflation from his inflamed airways.

Then we just had to wait four and half hours for a bed so that he could be admitted. There were no beds available in his usual cardiac ICU so he had to be admitted to their regular pediatric ICU.

The admission process is traumatizing to Brendan and both of us. We get hit with a barrage of questions while a huge mass of people in masks and gowns attack from every direction, all of them trying to get a stethoscope on Brendan or to poke or prod or push or hook something up.
I would guess there were 9 people. Only 3 of them bothered to tell me who they were and why they needed to be there. They are as aggressive as a bunch of children when a piñata breaks open, all trying to get to the same small place.

I could have gone my whole life without seeing a trauma room in the children’s ER.

I asked Bill to back up a bit so I could take Brendan’s picture

But he was stuck

It was a struggle to get rest, he finally got a short nap on my arm until it fell asleep

I don’t know how he is supposed to get comfortable

Getting ready to move to his real room

And here are his temporary quarters. He will be here a few days I am sure. He is on IV fluids and IV steroids for the respiratory inflammation. His trach smells very bad so we are waiting for all the cultures to come back with results so they know how to treat it.

I hoped I was past the illness, but currently my sinuses are jam packed and my eyes hurt. I hope Trevor is still OK in the morning.

We owe a big thank you to Christine who came right over and took care of Trevor tonight. He was able to eat, have his bath, read and play and go to bed on time. Bill relieved her just after midnight.
I only have one picture of Trevor from this morning, he got ahold of the phone and I think he was trying to dial China.

It is going to be a rough couple of days, we all hope Brendan gets better as quickly as he got so sick. This illness hit him hard and fast.