This morning we went up to visit Matthew, thinking that we would see him looking much the same way we left him last night...cool with his little nose plugs. Much to our dismay, he was back to his old tricks with the elephant nose tube.
Apparently, he crashed a little bit overnight as a result of a hemothorax. That's a small bubble of air located just outside of his lungs that takes away the oxygen that they've been pumping into him.
SO...we spent most of the afternoon worried sick about our little guy, and finally got the chance to go back up to visit at around 4:30. When we got there, he was still an elephant, but they had chest X-ray scheduled to see how the hemothorax had progressed/regressed. The picture was a scary one, as it looked like this thing had actually INCREASED in size. The nurses called the on-call doctor, who ordered another X-ray shot from a different angle. This made all the difference, and the hemo had actually DECREASED a bit.
The doctor was so pleased with this, coupled with his apparent rallying in terms of the oxygen he needed, that she is going to take off his elephant nose and go back to his original form of oxygen...the Oxymask. This is a cool little contraption that looks an awful lot like an astronaut's helmet. It sits over his head (with a little hole where his neck sticks out) and provides him with oxygen.
What all this means is as yet unclear, but at least it appears to be progress. Plus, now we'll get to see his face again! We've been talking to a lot of other folks whose kids have had similar problems, and all of them say that their kids were out of the hospital in under a week...that'd be ncie!
I'll update again after we visit him tonight.
2 comments:
Even though we know all this, it's really nice to have a written account of it, too. You guys are such great parents Bri. We love you, and we'll be thinking about "L.B. II" tonight. :-)
Happy Easter to all. Special kisses and hugs for Matthew and Chris. Save a couple for Mommie and Daddie too.
Love you, Grandma Bev
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