in the HDU

Sorry about no update last night. We sat around all day doing nothing, waiting for his x-ray to be taken, for the x-ray to be read, etc, and when things finally moved along, it was too late to post on the hospital computer (there is no wi-fi here, we’re using the hospital’s computer in the cafeteria).

So they did move Emmett to the Ladybird ward yesterday, which is the regular cardiac ward. But in that ward, there is a room with 4 beds called the high-dependency unit (HDU), where the nursing ratio is 1 nurse to 2 patients. That’s where they’ve moved Emmett.

They were able to pull one of his chest tubes yesterday. Unfortunately, his pneumothorax on the other side (the same side that has given him problems since the surgery) is not any smaller, so they decided to leave the tube on that side in. Which means he has to continue on the morphine drip (because a chest tube is really painful), keep his central line in, keep his urinary catheter in, etc. So this is not the best news.

Last night he also had some bloodwork that showed that he’s starting an infection. They don’t call things by names I recognize here, so I’m not sure if its his white blood cell count that’s high or if its something else, but he’s already on really heavy-duty IV antibiotics, so we’re praying they’ll take care of whatever it is, and that his kidneys can continue to tolerate those antibiotics.

Rounds will start in a few (we actually get to be there for these), and I think the plan is that they’ll take another chest x-ray (we’ll be lucky if he isn’t glowing in the dark from all the radiation when we bring him home) to check on the pneumothorax, and then make a decision about what to do about the chest tube. I think the dilemma is that all of the tubes in him present ways to introduce infections, and they’d like to get those out as soon as possible, plus they’d like him to be awake and moving around to break up chest secretions, but at the same time, if his lung is till leaking air into his chest cavity, he needs the chest tube.

In other news, Mike is going to head home today so that he can take my mom to the airport tomorrow – actually tomorrow morning he’ll bring the kids and my mom on the train close to here, and I’ll meet them at the station to say goodbye to mom and take the boys. Then when Mike gets back to the hospital, we’ll hang out as long as the boys can stand it, and then I’ll take them home. I’m really not looking forward to Mike leaving, and I’m really, really, really not looking forward to my mom leaving – she has been a Godsend these past few weeks. But we’ll figure it out – with the help of our friends and Mike’s squadron, ’cause we sure can’t do it on our own 🙂 .

I really can’t thank you guys enough for all of the emotional support you’re giving us – it blows us away. Please keep praying for Emmett – he’s definitely not out of the woods yet.