UPDATE – 8:00AM (MST) (by Josh):
Tina called Dr. Perry this morning (Ella’s pediatrician) because she had another rough night. Due to her continued fever, high heart rate, and overall behavior, he recommended that she take her to the ER to have her checked out. Hopefully some tests will give us more insight into what’s affecting our girl. It could be something as simple as a cold, or maybe something else. I’ll update once I know more.
While riding on light rail, listening to Charles Stanley this morning, God put this thought on my heart. Do the circumstances around us make God any less trustworthy? In ALL circumstances, we can fully trust in Him. Praise God!
UPDATE – 11:30AM (MST) (by Josh):
Tina just let me know that Ella’s being admitted to the hospital so they can watch her overnight. Not a ton of info yet, just doing all the tests…xray, echo, labs, etc in the ER before they move her to a room upstairs. One doctor said the chest x-ray looks hazy… and that maybe her lungs are wet, but they look ok otherwise…no collapsing or signs of aspiration. We’re waiting to see what Dr. Abman (her pulmonologist) thinks. White blood cell count looks ok, so it doesn’t look like infection. She’s also not running a fever right now. She’s currently on 700mls of O2 and saturating about 95%. Heart rate is around 150. We’ve also noticed that her urine output has decreased over the last day or so.
At this time we think it may just be the fluid issue Ella has always battled, but we’ll see.
Praying and trusting.
UPDATE – 11:00PM (MST) (by Tina):
Once all the tests were done this morning, we were stuck in the ER until 4:30pm. The Children’s Hospital had every bed filled to capacity, so we were waiting for someone to be discharged. They wanted to admit Ella to the hospital so that they could run more tests and monitor her overnight.
They moved us to the eighth floor. It is a private room complete with a flat screen TV, pull out bed, bathroom and view of the city and mountains. Along with the beautiful facility, all the employees have been amazing. We have never been to a Children’s Hospital and it makes such a HUGE difference when everyone is trained to take care of children. If we have to be in the hospital, we are glad to be here. It makes the experience not so bad.
This evening, Ella has stabilized on 1 liter of oxygen. Along with her fever that returned tonight, her heart rate is around 185, breaths per minute 85-100, and saturating 93-95. So far, all her tests are not pointing to anything obvious. Her white blood cell count was normal. Blood labs came back with everything in normal range, although her blood urea nitrogen (BUN) came back at 14. If you remember, a higher number means that she is more dry and Dr. Kays liked to see it 20 or higher. The last BUN was 18, when we first returned to Denver. So she is definitely more “wet”, even though she is still on a lot of diuretics.
They took a blood gas this evening and said that it was pretty good – – they expected it to be worse, but it seems her body is compensating. For all the medically minded people out there, here were the results:
PH – venous gas 7.45
PCO2 – Venous 47
PO2 – Venous 54
HCO3 – Venous 32
Total CO2 – Venous 33
Base Excess – Venous 7.0
O2 Saturation – Venous 87.3
The chest xray came back looking slightly hazy, but not real bad. It is tough for them to comment because they have no other chest xrays to compare. Her echocardiogram shows no pulmonary hypertension; this means her medicine is working and the altitude is not causing too much of an issue. The swab for viruses (they swipe boogies from her nose) came back negative. So far, no bacteria growth for the other blood tests.
Dr. Perry called and we discussed everything that happened today. He is such a great doctor – so nice. Tomorrow, Dr. Perry will be attending on rounds so we will get to see him in person. We are going to try and have some tests completed tomorrow through gastroenterology – – we want to figure out why she is retching so much and if that has played a role in her lungs getting too wet (could she be micro-aspirating)?
We expect to be here throughout tomorrow and possibly for another evening, depending on how Ella does throughout the night. Once we meet with all the doctors and they discuss the results of all the tests tomorrow morning, we will have a better idea.
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers for the Bun. The support out there from all of you is so encouraging during times like these.
