Yup…that’s right. We made a trip to the ER today.

As you’ve seen over the last few days, Ella has not been doing so hot. She’s been extra fussy, inconsolable, and not sleeping well at night.

We had thought the trend was related to something other than fluid, but the signs of having extra fluid on board were there. This is why we gave her the 1mg dose of Bumex on Wednesday, and then 2 additional .5mg doses, 1 on Thursday and the other Friday.

Ella still seemed to be having trouble today though, and with all that diuretic, we were surprised. After talking through all the symptoms with her pulmonologist, he suggested that we give her one more 1mg dose of the Bumex. We did, and we waited for a big diaper….but the big diaper didn’t come. 2 hours went by…still no big diaper.

If she’s not peeing out, this means she’s now probably too dry. We called the doc back, and considering we had to have Ella on 2 liters of O2 just to keep her saturating in the 90’s, and with her still be fussy, he now wanted us to go to the ER to have labs drawn and a chest x-ray.

So we packed up the car, and even threw in a nights worth of clothes and sleeping stuff (i.e. blow up mattress, etc) just in case we were admitted.

Well as soon as we got to our room in the ER, Ella took a little nap, woke up, and started behaving more like herself. We weaned her down to 1.5 liters of O2, and she maintained her saturations ok.

The wanted to draw blood for a BMP and they decided to place an IV at the same time. Last time we were in the ER, they tried 4 (maybe 5) times to place an IV, but it didn’t happen. This time they got it on the first try! So glad it worked out this way.

After the IV, Ella went down for a chest x-ray. After she returned we had a great time just playing and tickling her. She was behaving so well, which was very surprising.

The docs came in with the results from the BPM and x-ray. Her lungs look no different than her last x-ray, which is good. Her electrolytes looked alright overall, but her BUN was pretty high…it came in at 38. The higher that number, the more “dry” Ella is. Ella seems to do well somewhere in the high 20’s, but this was on the high side for her.

The pulmonologist wanted to give her a dose of IV fluids then have us hold her Aldactized (thiazide diureted) for the next 48 hours. We didn’t feel comfortable giving Ella a bolus of fluids because the last time we did, it took almost 2 days to get her back into a “good” place. Plus, she wasn’t showing any secondary signs of major dehydration (i.e. good cap refill, tears when she cried, etc.). We compromised and said that we would hold off on giving any diuretics for the next 48 hours.

Everyone was all good with this, so they sent us home. SO glad we were not admitted to the hospital.

At this moment, Ella is sleeping soundly, saturating 100, and is down to 750mls of O2! Praying that she sleeps through the night because she hasn’t for the last few nights.

Sleep would be good…which is what I’m off to do now. Thanks for all the continued prayers, love, and support.

Psalm 33:20-22 (New Living Translation)
We put our hope in the Lord.
He is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,
for our hope is in you alone.