Back in the hospital

Well, we were just released from another few days in the hospital. On Wednesday 12-27, by suggestion of our pediatrican, we were sent to the ER at St. Joseph's. At our DR appointment that day when she was scheduled to get her 3rd Synagis (anti-RSV) shot, she was having difficulties breathing and was very congested. After checking her Oxygen saturations (SATS) they were only coming up about 65. She has been breathing at about 80, so this was quite a drop. She was retracting a bit while she was struggling to get enough oxygen to breathe. So our pediatrician told me that she really didn't want us going home just in case anything might happen, so she strongly urged us to go right to the ER.

So I called Mike and met him halfway to the hospital and Mom came and picked up the girls. We then called the heart surgeons and they told us to go to their office before we went to the ER. They thought she needed to be admitted immediately, so they called PICU and found a bed for us. We were so grateful to be avoiding hours and hours waiting at the ER with many other sick, RSV kids.

At first they were concerned that she had a heart infection because the echocardiogram they did on her was showing that she was having lots of leaking from her tricuspid valve (which we had already known about.) So one of the cardiologists went over to the Mesa office to personally view the results of that last echo done in November just to compare the two. They found that it was not any different. Thank heavens. We were quite relieved because the treatment for a heart infection is 8 weeks of IV antibiotics. Whew...

So they continued to run blood tests, testing for RSV and other bacteria and viral infections. Everything came back negative, so they concluded that Brynlyn was just fighting an unknown viral infection and she would just have to let it pass.

They started with breathing treatments every 4 hours which includes CPT (chest pats) and deep suctioning of the lungs. They pulled out quite a bit of fluid out of her lungs, so that hopefully would help the passing of the infection.

She started to look better clinically so they released her from ICU on Friday and then released us on Saturday around 1:00 p.m.

She is very happy to be home and has slept almost nonstop. (I forgot how much sleep you miss by being in the hospital.) We are happy to have her home also.

The interesting thing is that Mike and the girls were all packed up to leave on Thursday to go to Utah for New Years. They were going to be leaving early the next morning. It is just another reminder to us that you just never know what's ahead in the future and you never know what's going to happen from day to day. You just have to plan as best as you can and "roll with it" when plans suddenly change.