Turned the corner

A quick update before I head to bed. Ian is with his Daddy tonight and doing much better. Before I left last night, he had started to seem more himself, smiling, laughing and bouncing himself in the bouncer the hospital loaned us. I guess he pulled his IV out this evening while they were suctioning him. After two failed attempts to get it back in, they decided to wait until morning. I'm thinking he can probably go without now that he's eating more and, I believe, has finished his run on this round of antibiotics but we'll see what the doctors say tomorrow.

I guess they feel it might be until Tuesday or Wednesday before they'll let him go home. They need to wean him off the 10 liters of oxygen he's on trying to get him closer to the 1/4 or 1/8 of a liter he's on at home. Also have to get him off the hi-flow back to the regular flow. They told Mike a more typical healthy child would stay in for 3-4 days but a kid like Ian needs more time to recover and be monitored.

In general Mike says he seems in good spirits except when he coughs and sounds like he's underwater and turns bright red. That was happening all the time when I was there but I guess it's subsided quite a bit now.

I'm home with Lila who I took to the doctor at 8 this morning. She has infections in both ears! Another round of antibiotics for her as well but luckily hers is P.O. (via mouth). And of course, continued breathing treatments every four hours, and a pill at night and another powder mixed in juice morning and night. These kids and their medicines! We just need to all live in a bubble for a while and see how that goes ;-)

On another note, when I have a free moment (probably in 5 years ;-) I'm going to make a case to add a class to the medical student's curriculum. Ian ended up in a bad state while I was suctioning him yesterday morning that really scared me. It was similar to the "seizure like action he had done when we took him by ambulance in July. I was able to change his position and get him to mellow out quite quickly but it was scary. By the time I could get the nurses in, he had mellowed quite a bit but was still looking flustered and pushing really hard to breathe. They all helped as they could. But by the time the resident came in with her "oh, another overreactive mother" attitude, all she could offer up was "oh, he's teething, do you think Tylenol will help".... are you serious?!

I've had a lot of experiences with residents, fellows, etc. and I have to tell someone in charge that they are just not cutting it in the empathy and patient connection area. I know they are busy and are working long hours, but if you choose the job, you need to follow through with the care. I'd say 80% of them I've encountered have been rude, short in speech, and not there to help but I get a strong sense to judge. If any of them could go through the psychological training to put themselves in their patients' positions, or even imaging they are treating a loved one or a family member, I really feel it would help.

On the other hand, the nurses are usually amazing. For instance, in this instance the nurse came in later to check in and we talked. Her take on it is that while I was suctioning him he panicked because he couldn't get air out or in, which makes sense. She was explaining how his lungs aren't working so well and how much harder it is to go through the breath cycle. If it's interrupted, that could be cause for panic. While he's so sensitive and fragile, I can understand reacting that way.

That's what I needed to hear. That someone is assessing my son from a medical standpoint and cares to figure out what happened.

By the way, the poor guy now has one of his top as well as one of his bottom teeth fully breaking through this whole time in the hospital! How miserable can he be! And, yes, we had already been giving him tylenol.