An EEG, TP tube, and 2 X-Rays!

It's been another eventful day for Alayna. I have to start off by saying how much she slept yesterday and last night. The phenobarbital pretty much knocked her out from noon yesterday until 5:00 am this morning. That is because she got two "loaded" doses. I actually got to rest a little! So, the day started off at 5:00 am with her waking up and coughing terribly. An albuterol treatment was ordered to see if it would help with this and her breathing. She hadn't had one for almost 24 hours. Her oxygen level dropped into the mid-upper 80's, so the nurse turned her oxygen flow up from 2 L to 4 L. That was a bit of a surprise because she had been holding her own at 2 L for nearly 24 hours. When she drops below 88, alarms go off. It is not acceptable.

She was deep suctioned and quite a bit of "stuff" came out which helped a little. An x-ray was ordered to check out her lungs and they drew blood for a gas test. This all happened so quickly this morning. They are truly on top of things here. Her blood gas test came back fine, which I'm thankful for. If it doesn't look normal that is when kids have to be intibated. Her lungs still showed some white on the x-ray which indicated inflammation or fluid. Her stats eventually started to come up and it helped by placing her on her right side.

By 9:00 am she had her first maintenance dose of phenobarbital and was getting ready for an EEG. I have pictures of all of these things and I'll gladly share them when I get home. I'm sure some of the nurses or doctors thought I was crazy for taking pictures, but they said they didn't mind. The EEG was interesting with all of the electrodes "glued" to her head. She needs a good hair scrubbing to get all of the left over glue out. By noon, the doctors ordered that deep suctioning occur every 4 hours and that the respiratory therapist do back/chest percussions to loosen things up 3 times a day and suction after that too. It really has seemed to have helped. Plus Alayna likes the vibration on her back. It actually feels pretty good and it puts her to sleep.

Around 1:00 pm, the pulmonary doctors lowered her oxygen down to 1 L and she is maintaining it between 90-100 percent. Yes! At 4:15 pm she had a PICU nurse come in and insert a TP tube, which stands for trans pyloric tube. It is a tube inserted through her nostril that goes down through the stomach and past another "valve." So, it really isn't in the stomach it is past it. That way she won't have the risk of aspirating or getting sick which could make this situation worse. We don't want that. Another x-ray was just taken a few minutes ago to make sure it was in the correct place. Let's hope it is so she can start getting some Carnation Goodstart formula for the nutrition and keep things moving in her tract. It probably won't satisfy her much because it's not really going directly into the stomach and that is a bummer since she wants to eat her hand or anything else that comes close to her mouth! She even tried sucking on the deep suctioning tube this morning. The nurses thought that was so cute. They had never had a little one do that before! They all think she is adorable....and of course she is!

That's a quick update. Lots of doctors and nurses in and out all day long. I am so happy with the care she has received. I don't want to jinx myself, but I think she is doing better today. I have to be patient. This isn't something an antibiotic can treat. It takes time and progress is slow, but not totally nonexistent. Again, thank you for all of your prayers and for taking the time to check out Alayna's blog. She continues to teach many of us lots of things. Life is precious....and she's my little angel.