day 233 January 23, 2010

Saturday-Well, the rest of Friday night did not go so well. It was actually right around 11 pm and we were in Urgent Care and Cody scared the life out of me. I find out later that this was life threatening and that he was in shock. His blood pressure started dropping and his heart rate increased to something like 170. They kept giving him bolus's of fluids (which are fortified saline solutions that run in very quickly) and he ended up needing 7-8 of them. He was very dehydrated. They started putting in IV's rather abruptly, in his arms and foot to get antibiotics going. He was coherent but just scared and the kept saying it was an emergency. His pressure and heart rate did not get to a constant level for quite some time. Sloan does not have ICU but rather a POU (pediatric observation unit) so there was talk of us going over to Columbia to the ICU there. But after a few hours he finally was somewhat regulated so we got to the POU here on the 9th floor around 5:30 a.m. So no sleep here. We took cat naps here and there yesterday and Cody began to feel better. He is getting all kinds of antibiotics. His white count was way up indicating an infection somewhere. He did not get a fever because it is masked from the steroids. Not sure where the infection is but could be in his blood or because of the vomiting and diarrhea, maybe a gastro infection of some kind. We probably won't know exactly but we do know he is getting better, thank goodness. He was not happy to know we have to be here most of the week but he needs to get this infection cleared. He is still being hydrated and his levels of things like potassium and magnesium are off so he continues to get fluids. He still has diarrhea but no vomiting and he wants to eat which is a good sign. Long night and a long day.