Still the PICU and not enough Poo

Not much change for Brayden today.

He is still in the PICU.  His breathing and heart rate have stabilized.  His color looks remarkably better, no longer that scary sick waxy color anymore.  But he does look very uncomfortable. His blood work is still a concern, electrolytes are not considered stable yet.  It looks like there cannot be anymore IV bags hooked up, lots of fluids and more going in to help him out.

Brayden had another abdomen x-ray, his system is still full of stool.  And that spot on the x-ray, the sorta-looks-like-a-kidney-stone spot, is actually a tooth he apparently lost and swallowed recently.  It is making its way through his GI tract.  I am considering offering a reward to the nurse that finds it in his diaper.

Brayden's tummy is still hard and swollen.  Some time in the middle of the night they tried to get some of the stool out.  It was a geyser of liquid poo, apparently 400-500 ccs of it (oh that poor nurse).  And still there is poo and a hard tummy.  His g-tube drain is a dark, disturbing color that still smells like poo and so does his breath.  We did attempt some serious teeth brushing today.

He has been a bit more alert/awake today.  Which is a good thing but is showing he is miserable.  It seems like so much effort to even open his eyes.  Then he lays there and oh so softly, and pitifully, moans in pain; too much effort to cry.  Still gagging.  We just want to comfort him and don't know how.

We are have been discussing pain management for him, unfortunately there are not many options, as most of them slow down the GI system and we need all that he has to offer (even if a tiny bit).

We don't really have a plan of care at this point, just to get him stable.  Hopefully tomorrow we will see the Motility GI doctor.  The hospital on the weekend is like a ghost town, it seems like only essential personnel (the nurse called it the skeleton staff) and so are the cafeteria food options, yikes.  So Monday should be much busier and hopefully more productive.

For a bit of comic relief or to just sound more pitiful...during a diaper change today Brayden peed over the rail of the bed and landed on my foot (I am wearing sandals because that is all I have at this point).  Oh this only gets better...I pick up Carter and Luke from a friends house.  Luke is complaining of a headache, we know he struggles with migraines (it runs in my family).  It hurts so bad that it is making his stomach upset, anyone that struggles with migraines knows this feeling well.  We rush in to the rental house, I am trying to help him.  He doesn't make to the bathroom and he vomits all over my foot, my peed-on sandal-wearing foot.  And here is the thing, I don't really have a lot of cleaning products since all of ours were trashed and I haven't purchased very many.  So off to the store.

Time to call it a day.  Jeremy is at the hospital with Brayden and I am attempting to manage the other two boys here in Waterford.

We are nothing but fun here.