Day +70
MORNING UPDATE - BACK ON THE VENT
Max was ventilated for the 4th time this morning. His saturations took a sharp drop during his breathing treatment and suctioning at 8am. Dr. Milla was able to do a flexible bronchoscopy through his nose and looked into his trachea. He saw blood coming up from his lungs. He said Max needed to be intubated immediately. Within minutes, the team was assembled and it included Dr. Sweeney who had intubated Max before and has been a great help to him while under his care. The intubation went well and they are going to do another bronchoscopy down his ET tube to get a deeper look at what is going on.
Then we were in a waiting room and the entire BMT team, including the guest visitors from Canada and Iowa sat down with us. There was no doubt that a pulmonary hemorrhage is a serious, and potentially life-threatening problem. But as of right now it is the kind of thing they have seen kids recover from. Many kids do go through additional hemorrhages before things are stabilized however, and that is why they predict Max is going to be on the vent for a very long time. Weeks, they said.
It would be obvious to say we are disappointed that Max is on the vent again. He had been doing very well by Max standards and was making progress. In fact, last night his saturation was at the maximum, 100% with very little oxygen help. So, this setback does break our hearts. But this wasn't done for just breathing, it was done for bleeding, and that is more than a little frightening.
Max is a tough kid, a fighter, but how much can they ask of our son? There are just so many problems to try and solve simultaneously it's like nothing gets solved and he's susceptible to new problems. While ventilated, however, they just have so much more control over him and they are able to use many different meds. Maybe during this time they can make some progress with his seizures and his gvhd.
Please pray that the doctors can find some common ground on the path to take.
--Mike & Margaret
Max was ventilated for the 4th time this morning. His saturations took a sharp drop during his breathing treatment and suctioning at 8am. Dr. Milla was able to do a flexible bronchoscopy through his nose and looked into his trachea. He saw blood coming up from his lungs. He said Max needed to be intubated immediately. Within minutes, the team was assembled and it included Dr. Sweeney who had intubated Max before and has been a great help to him while under his care. The intubation went well and they are going to do another bronchoscopy down his ET tube to get a deeper look at what is going on.
Then we were in a waiting room and the entire BMT team, including the guest visitors from Canada and Iowa sat down with us. There was no doubt that a pulmonary hemorrhage is a serious, and potentially life-threatening problem. But as of right now it is the kind of thing they have seen kids recover from. Many kids do go through additional hemorrhages before things are stabilized however, and that is why they predict Max is going to be on the vent for a very long time. Weeks, they said.
It would be obvious to say we are disappointed that Max is on the vent again. He had been doing very well by Max standards and was making progress. In fact, last night his saturation was at the maximum, 100% with very little oxygen help. So, this setback does break our hearts. But this wasn't done for just breathing, it was done for bleeding, and that is more than a little frightening.
Max is a tough kid, a fighter, but how much can they ask of our son? There are just so many problems to try and solve simultaneously it's like nothing gets solved and he's susceptible to new problems. While ventilated, however, they just have so much more control over him and they are able to use many different meds. Maybe during this time they can make some progress with his seizures and his gvhd.
Please pray that the doctors can find some common ground on the path to take.
--Mike & Margaret
posted by Mike Ciacciarelli
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