Another Field Trip

Andrew took a field trip to Radiology for a CT scan today. They unhooked him from the ventilator, gave him breaths by 'bagging him' during transport, and then hooked him up to a conventional ventilator in the radiology room. He behaved well throughout, and there were no respiratory issues. The interventional radiologist was also able to attend, so they were prepared to drain any abscess that was found.

On his previous x-ray and ultrasound, it appeared that there was air and perhaps some fluid in his lower chest cavity, just below his left lung. When they were able to visualize the same area with the CT scan, they realized it was below the Gore-Tex patch, in his abdomen, rather than above. They inserted a needle and drew out the liquid. Instead of finding pus (which would be in an abscess), they found old blood. This was quite possibly left over from the surgery and probably harmless; they took cultures of the blood to make sure.

The rest of the CT was uneventful. They continued the scan, but won't review the details for a couple of days. There weren't any obvious issues, so it finished and they wheeled him back to his room. Not finding anything serious was a good outcome, so the scan is certainly a success for now.

However, Andrew had another post-scan issue. A few hours later, he had some more blood in his diaper. Since then, he's had a couple more. Though this would normally be very worrying and point to a perforated bowel, they can pretty much rule that out from the scan. That again points to colitis, a simple internal inflammation of his colon. Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done for it, aside from what they're already doing. He's still on antibiotics, they've taken cultures of everything to look for anything unusual, and so far he's doing well on the ventilator.

So, the day was essentially a wash. The situation they were worried about appears to be nothing, but there's still an unexplained problem to keep an eye on. His test results recently have been better, pointing to a lessening of infection. His gases have also been good enough to wean the vent settings a few times. Since there are no obvious action items, they'll continue with the current plan.....they'll wean the hi-fi, switch him to a conventional vent, wean those settings, and then try to extubate. He's obviously a long way from that point, but it's still a good long-term goal.

I'll post again if we get additional CT results....if not, the next few days should be pretty boring. As long as his dosages are correct, he just lays there sleeping all day. It'll probably be a few days (at least) before they allow him to wake up again; they want to make sure his other issues are under control first.