Day 2 Recovery

I will possibly post more later in the day. Jethro (and Mama!) had a rough night. When the shift change happened, he was very agitated. He had been agitated off and on all day. We couldn't really determine if he was uncomfortable, or if it was a reaction to meds. At one point, in the early afternoon, he had quit breathing, and they had to bag him.

So, at shift change, we watched and waited. Mike had gone home and gotten everyone from Logan on down and brought them up so that they could see Jethro, and then we went and had some supper. After I got back, I posted on Facebook and wondered how concerned I should be. There were just several little things ~ the agitation, he was very "rattly" sounding, he hadn't cried since being extubated, he hadn't had his eyes open much, etc ~ that were concerning to me.

The night nurse and I talked about some of my concerns and we watched. She decided that she would take care of her other kiddo first because he was "simple". So, when she got back into our room, she decided that she would give Jethro just a bit of Versed to calm him while she did all of her evaluation stuff. She checked his pupils first, just so that she would have a baseline for him, and then gave him just a little Versed. Almost immediately, he became unresponsive. His respirations dropped into the single digits, he was limp, he just wasn't really responsive to stimuli, etc. She called the charge nurse, and we continued to try to stimulate him and keep him taking breaths. The charge nurse came in and we talked. I told her how concerned I was about how he had been since coming up from surgery. And that he just wasn't showing any signs of any sort of "normal" for him. The cardiologist had been in several times yesterday, but she had not seen him when he was in one of his "non-responsive spells" (I do not want to give the wrong impression of his Dr. She was concerned, and made orders accordingly so, but things did dramatically change after she left). So, then we called in the Intensivist and asked what he thought.

He decided that Jethro should go down and have a CT done. He thought from our description of how he was behaving, that his little brain just wasn't telling his body appropriate responses to pain or pain meds. But, since we were all concerned/worried about how he was doing, he felt a CT was the way to go.

The charge nurse got him all ready to transport (no simple feat, with several IV pumps and numerous tubes and cords attached. And then he decided he didn't want to breath. :-/ I was slapping his feet and shaking him, the nurse was pinching him, and he just didn't really want to breath. They called the Dr. in ~ the nurse said she was worried about trying to transport him without intubating first. They decided to give him some Narcan (it reverses the effects of narcotics). And it was like someone flipped a switch. Jethro opened his eyes and his pupils were dilated almost to normal, he coughed and quit being all gurgly sounding, he started to cry and he began to breath better.

Apparently, it is a quick acting drug, but I fully believe it was God answering the many, many prayers that were going up on Jethro's behalf. I'm not sure the drug even had time to get into his little body from the IV tube before he was responding. It was instantaneous. The Dr and nurses were amazed as well. We went down for the CT and all looks good. Once we got back up to his room, his temp had dropped some, and he was resting peacefully.

I did stay with him until about 1 am, just for my own peace of mind, but he was fine. And now we know that he is hyper-sensitive to pain meds.

This morning, he has been awake a fair amount, and he is much more himself than he was yesterday. It's good to see my baby. :-)

Please continue to pray for a good recovery for Jethro. And give thanks along with us that God has placed us in the midst of outstanding Dr.s and nurses ~ and that He is answering prayers and keeping Jethro in the palm of His hand.