Saturday, September 12, 2009

Better Day

Today was a turnaround day. Finally Brandon's right lung has some air movement. We are on day 7 in the hospital and day 6 in ICU. I was starting to worry about the right lung, because we have not seen improvement. But today finally we are hearing air movement. That means that the right lung is recovering. We still need to clear both lungs. This is a big improvement.

Also today, Brandon felt well enough to cough, which is important to help clear the lungs as well. He continues to receive intrapulmonary percussive ventilation. Which helps clear the lungs. However, Brandon hates the treamtent and is really fighting it. It is really hard to watch because Brandon very rarely has such a harse reaction to anything. Tonight we will decide if he will continue this treatment. More good news, Brandon has been off the Bipap breathing machine for 1 hour increments and was able to mainting his saturation rates in the lungs three times today. If this continues, that means we are close to getting off the Bipap machine. They are taking this step very slowly because if we take him off the Bipap too soon he can regress very quickly and we would start all over.

Brandon was also up playing Old Maid with me this afternoon. They let him sit up for 1 hour. He was really tired after he sat up but did a great job during the hour. Oh by the way - he won.

Laura Warren came to see us tonight. She is the first person to pass the isolation barrier of room 45 (with the exception of Brandon's school nurse and Lee Ann another nurse). Both my brother and I are already exposed so we do not have to take the protections. But everyone else coming into the room must wear a mask, a gown and sterile gloves if approaching Brandon. Before Laura came in, they made her suit up. I did ask the doctors today how much longer we would need this protection. I didn't really get a clear answer, but I keep hearing he will be safe after the normal virus/flu period which is normally 10 days. We are approaching 10 days. I think they will also want him termperature free and we are close to this as well.

So big success today, but alot of hard work for Brandon. He starting to complain about being in the hospital and asking when we can go home. The latest response is a countdown of minutes everytime he coughs. We were up to 54 coughs this evening. That is 54 more coughs than any other day. More tomorrow.
Leah

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Leah this is great news. I have an appointment on Tuesday with my Doc so friday am I went to get labs only to find out I have a urinary track infection. They started me on some meds but they told me I needed to be careful when I ask for the Tamiflu. Said I need to wait cause with already having a infection my resistance was down. We are going to be in Austin the weekend of the 26th. I feel sure you all will be home then and we can see Brandon. Thanks for the blogs!

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