Bumps in The Road. . .

Every road we travel has its bumps. Today Trayvon has hit one. It's not a big one, but sometimes those small bumps can give a pretty good jostle when you're not prepared.

We actually slept pretty good from 1:00am to 6:45am when x-ray showed up for his daily picture. I was shocked to see the time and realized neither one of us had stirred in almost 5 straight hours. After the lovely photo session was over, we both nodded off for a bit longer until the nurse arrive to do her morning rounds. Day has begun.

I had thought, due to all of the sleep, it was going to be a good one. Til we hit the bump.

His chest tubes were leaking heavily, he was coughing non-stop which was adding additional agony to the already painful tubes. Good day, fading quickly. 

The coughing, pain and fever have taken him down for a bit. 

Nurse returns, removes 2 IV's from his right hand. One had been deeply placed between the pinky and ring finger. It bled heavily and hurt badly to have the pressure applied to stop the bleeding. Then the coughing started again with the crying.

Cardio-Thoracic surgeon arrives. Chest tube in right lung is not working. It is kinked and needs to be repositioned. Sounds so simple. It actually is, but is also profoundly painful. Tray was shaking from head to toe by the completion of the project. Orders another chest photo to check for placement and pneumonia.

Finally settled down after a some serious monkeying around with those pesky chest tubes.

Transplant Dr. arrives. Tray is doing well overall, but we have some things to work on. I ask what is the definition of “fever” in a transplant patient. . . 100.3 orally.

1 hour later. Thermometer reads 100.3 exactly. 1 hour later, 101.0. Antibiotics started. Cultures drawn. Tylenol given.

Tray has not really eaten in over 12 days. He does not like the hospital food at all. He's limited as to what he can have from a restaurant and he can't think of anything he wants from the store except tuna fish. He has had a tuna sandwich every day for the past 3 days. Yesterday I was able to get him to eat a hamburger from McDonalds as well. Today we talked him into trying the Ensure juice boxes. He liked apple flavored and drank 2. They are 200cal each. Good start. 

Yet another untouched meal.

As the day went on though, he recovered from the bump, settled into the ride and is ready to move along.

After a couple of hours in a chair, his fever came down, he played his computer game, and even talked to his sister and brother.

Now, he's settled in again for the night. . . hoping to skirt around the bumps tomorrow.  We shall see.