pleural effusion – Patrick Hoopes

Transplant Day 32 and slow and steady

Well, today I have very little to report. It was a very quiet day. Patrick’s pain is a little better, and so his breathing is, too. He only needed oxygen for a little while after we got him really mad getting up in the morning. His nurse wanted to take the cannula (tube) off his nose tonight, but we told him to wait till after bath in the morning.

The doctors restarted feeds and started to decrease the TPN again. So far, so good. We’ll see what the chest x-ray shows in the morning. So far, though, things are moving in the right direction.

We know he’s still hurting some. It’s hard to find the balance, though, to know how much he needs medicine. He does NOT want to walk. I was trying to get him to walk around the room earlier today and he decided to just stand on one foot so I couldn’t make him take the next stop. Not sure if that’s because of pain or because of a fear of coughing or just fear in general. Brian pushed and pushed to get him up and once he forgot to be miserable, Patrick actually walked quite well to the nurse’s station. But then he tried to refuse to come back. This is one area where Daddy will be sorely missed when he goes home.

Patrick got to play with a couple of his favorite volunteers. His homebound teacher came for his “first day” of homeschool. Patrick was overtired by then because his sleep schedule is all off right now, but it went ok.

Meanwhile, I started working on trying to figure out how to do Christmas here. It feels like all of our Christmas traditions are packed away or will go on without us in Utah. We don’t really have space or time for too much here. I hesitate to decorate because I don’t know where Patrick will spend his time. But I didn’t want to do nothing all month. So today, I put together a makeshift, simplified Truth in the Tinsel countdown to Christmas. The idea is to introduce the Christmas story with a topic a day. Each day has a word, a scripture, and a craft to make an ornament. Eventually, you end up with 24 homemade ornaments. I thought this might be a fun way to work towards decorating our own little miniature Christmas tree.

Today’s word was light. We read Isaiah’s prophesy of Christ’s birth and talked about how Christ is the light of the world. Then we made a candle ornament.

It was kind of nice to have time for a little project today, even if it was accomplished because I planned it while volunteers were playing with Patrick and shopped while he and his dad were napping.

Tonight, I’m spending the night at the Ronald McDonald House. Brian wanted me to have a night away before he flies home tomorrow. Plus, it means a little extra time for the two of them together. Tomorrow, things are going to be different for all of us.

Transplant Day 29 and some gut rest

Well last night was frustrating. The nursing staff was spread thin because of the holiday and it took a lot longer than usual for them to respond to the non-critical things. From 10-11 p.m. one of Patrick’s antibiotics ended and the pump alarm rang and there was no one to shut it off. I silenced it for a while, but Patrick insisted that it was the nurse’s job and my job was just to cuddle and talk to him. How can you argue with that?

Unfortunately, the nurses were trying not to bother him while he slept, so every time Patrick woke, they’d try to come in and do vitals. Problem is, that mean they were in the room half an hour each of those times and we were awake at midnight and 5 and 5:30. (Not complaining about nursing… just stating trouble with sleep that comes with not doing well.) Then, at 6 Patrick’s nurse came to deliver the news that the resident didn’t want to come drain his gut again “unless he’s really uncomfortable.” Well – 10 minutes later, Patrick woke up crying. He said “bucket” and, before I could react, he threw up all over everything.

Yes – uncomfortable. Apparently, with nothing moving out of his gut and feeds still moving in, Patrick’s gut and belly had finally had enough.

So we got him up and changed the bed and gave him a bath and turned on some Blues Clues. And we waited for the doctors to come for rounds.

Rounds were actually kind of a relief today. They talked about different causes for this new problem and tests that could look for those problems. They aren’t thinking rejection at this point.. perhaps some inflammation or something called an ileus where the gut just temporarily stops moving or a mechanical issue with the muscle wall around Patrick’s stoma or a type of irritation called pneumatosis.

Then, Dr. Mercer came into the room to try out draining Patrick’s belly himself. When he saw how little a catheter needed to go in to immediately drain, he was actually really relieved. He said that ruled out a lot of possible problems. It also eliminated the perceived huge risk of draining. He showed Brian then and there and wrote orders that the nursing staff or parents could do that as often as needed.

They also stopped feeds, restarted TPN, put Patrick’s g-tube to suction so he wouldn’t have to throw up any more, switched as many medication as possible to their IV forms, and ordered some tests. The rest of the morning was very busy. Patrick had an x-ray of his abdomen and then later a CT scan to look specifically for pneumatosis or any other narrowings or problems. I guess we did a good job selling the idea of how fun a CT can be because Patrick had already been asking if he’d get to go in the “donut” again. We got comments from the radiology staff and nurse about how comfortable he was doing something that terrifies most other children.

Patrick and daddy in a wheelchair headed to CT

Later today, they’ll come do an ileoscopy (scope through the stoma) and biopsy again.

Hopefully, one of these tests will show us what is going on. It is possible that Patrick’s belly just needs to rest and reset after all of the trauma of last week.

Regardless, with symptoms alleviated, the rest of yesterday was a good day. Without pain, Patrick was feeling up to sitting up and playing more. (In fact, he was more than a little afraid of his bed after all the scary things that had happened there this past few days, so he was doing all he could to get me to let him be in other places.) This means that his lungs have opened up and he was able to wean off of oxygen. His lungs are still recovering and they are trying to get the fluid all the way out of them and the lungs totally reinflating. His oxygen saturation is a little bit low and he sets off alarms when he sleeps, but he quickly rebounds and no one comes running at this point.

Having family here definitely lifted his spirits, too. He and I were both worn out and frustrated and mad yesterday. It would have been a hard day had just the two of us been trying to be together. But Patrick’s family made him feel like a million bucks. Really, seeing the pride in his eyes when I came back from doing laundry (it was a big laundry day) at having his uncle all to himself was impressive. And seeing him happy and laughing as he played with his cousins was a big treat, too. This little boy needs people and fun.

Brian went with Mark’s family to the zoo in the afternoon and Patrick and I took a much needed nap and some quiet individual play time.. But then they came back and we played in the playroom and went out to a break room to eat dinner.. and then back into the room for another priesthood blessing. (Patrick asked if Mark could help daddy give him one.) Then they gave him some gifts, including a ball that was then used to play monkey in the middle. He laughed and laughed.

When they left, I let him stay up and watch some of his new Dora DVD while we finished up his care and I got ready for bed.

I’m finishing this blog post up in the morning. Patrick has slept soundly all night. X-ray snuck in at 5:30. (Patrick’s nurse is fairly mad they did because she guards to be sure they don’t wake patients who don’t need it.) Patrick was really upset about it, but then tucked up his arms under my side and went back to sleep. A little later they came to draw labs, saw his bed needed cleaned up, and the same happened.

After such a long and hard week, it is so good to see him comfortable and sleeping peacefully. Hoping that goes a long way towards a better day today.

Patrick’s days are busy right now. He starts the day with labs at 5:30 and a chest x-ray at the latest moment that the nurses will allow to get him sleep but still get the results on time for rounds. He has meds at 7 and at 9, and because he doesn’t feel well, that means running zofram for nausea first. He has 2 antibiotics each given 3 times a day with a benadryl pretreatment before. He has respiratory therapy 3 times a day. He has vitals every 6 hours. And diapers. And stoma care. And a bath. And pain management. And getting up to walk. And trying not to go stir crazy.

It’s been 4 weeks since transplant. One thing we know from this journey.. So much can change in a day, or week, or month. We really appreciate all of the ongoing support and love that you offer Patrick, near or far.

Transplant Day 27 and Baby Steps

Well, since I blogged this morning, I don’t have a lot of updates. Patrick’s made steady progress all day. He still needs some oxygen support, but not as much. He slept till noon. He played in his wagon.

It was a good mail day. We got cards from Patrick’s kindergarten, a picture of the Salt Lake Temple from a friend, and a package from Patrick’s therapist and social skills group. Those things came on just on time to lift our spirits. Patrick was confused and sad to wake up in the ICU when he’d expected to go back to his room last night. Brian and I were just tired.

In addition to that, Brian went to Village Inn to pick up a couple of pies I ordered yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner. When I placed the order, they noticed my out of state phone number and asked what brought us to town. Well, when Brian got there to pick up the pies, she came out and explained that she had bought our pies for us. Just the kind of gesture to make the morning after a bad night better.

Patrick had a CT scan this afternoon to look at the current state of his lungs. That scared him and brought some tears… but they let Brian and me hold his hands and we even got some smiles during the test.

It’s been great to see his smiles. I hadn’t noticed how much they had been missing till I saw them come back. He is sore and afraid of being more sore so he hasn’t wanted to walk much. His neck is kinked and he doesn’t want to turn his head. But overall, he’s still feeling and moving better.

After it hurting to talk yesterday, Patrick has stayed with his default method of communication from yesterday. He is waiting for yes/no questions and then answering with sign language. This is better than not talking at all… but I hope his words come back soon.

We were transferred back to the pediatric floor today to a room that is a touch smaller but otherwise a mirror image of our previous room. Since his lungs are still kind of at risk, we are packing smarter this week… keeping things a little more put away and hanging fewer decorations on the walls. But it is nice to have more space and more quiet at least.

Brian’s brother and his family arrived tonight. They are making Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. It was really fun to see them. Patrick was so content that he fell asleep in his wagon holding Mark’s hand. I don’t quite have the heart to move him back to bed yet.

Transplant Day 26 and Atelectasis

Atelectasis: the collapse of part or (much less commonly) all of the lung.

Last night was one of the hardest we’ve had here. Patrick’s fever reached 104. And he was really struggling to breathe. Anytime he’d lay down, his oxygen saturation dropped. Anytime he sat up, he coughed violently. Finally, at 1 a.m. his nurse put him on oxygen and as long as we slept with the bed up and me helping to support him sitting up as he slept, he was able to rest.

At 5:45 a.m. radiology came to take a chest x-ray. It showed that Patrick’s pleural effusion had about doubled in size. It also showed that both lungs had “atelectasis.” In other words, his lungs were partially collapsed because of pressure.

When the team came around, they said that he needed them to help get the fluid out. If the fluid was from a pneumonia or infection, they could culture it and give the right antibiotics. If not, then they could from there start looking for other explanations for his fevers. The effusion itself can cause fever.

But he’d need sedation and that meant he’d need to have his feeds shut off for 6 hours. And that meant the earliest time would be evening.

Getting him up was rough, but once he was up, he seemed to do better. To help with the lung collapse, we played games that made him take deep breaths. We used birthday blowers to knock down towers of cups. We blew bubbles. We played with whistles. This kept him doing as good as possible, but as the day wore on, he needed more and more oxygen. I just tried to keep him happy sitting up, playing games, coloring.

His new homebound school teacher Mr. Chambers. came this afternoon. Patrick was dead tired and had figured out that sign language was easier than talking. So, this isn’t exactly how I figured Patrick’s first day of school in Omaha would look. But – it was the first step and that’s what matters. We’ll have an IEP written by the end of the week and dive in with 3 one-hour school sessions a week. Mr Chambers is very nice and very compassionate, too.

Also, Home Health came to deliver Patrick’s enteral feeding pump, get signatures, and give us any training we needed. We’ve used this pump before, but it’s been a long time and we weren’t using it all the time before.. So I figured a refresher course was in order. This pump is tiny and lightweight and Patrick will have no trouble at all moving and playing while wearing it in a backpack. It’s purpose is to do a drip feed of formula into his stomach all day long until he is able to eat enough calories on his own.

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At this point in my blogging, from yesterday got interrupted. It is now Wednesday morning and I’m going to fill you in on the rest of what happened last night.

About 4 p.m. yesterday, we heard from Patrick’s nurse than Interventional Radiology’s schedule was full and they were putting Patrick onto his schedule for 10:30 a.m. today. Thank goodness for our awesome nurse Debb who was worried about Patrick’s continual decline. She made a lot of noise and I think is part of why things are better right now instead of just starting right now.

A little later in the afternoon, the nurse practitioner came to check in on Patrick before going home and tell us the plan to wait till morning. We said, “What if things keep getting worse overnight?” She answered that if there were an acute emergency, they’d take him down sooner. So Brian asked what constituted an acute emergency. The answer: Needing 2-3 liters of oxygen. So we pointed out that he was already on 2 liters of oxygen and desatting when he tried to sleep. She countered, “but at least he’s resting comfortably.” And I said, “No.. he’s so uncomfortable he’s been lying there trying to sleep and is resting because he’s exhausted from the effort.” She left the room rather quickly at that point. Half an hour she came back to say that they were working on setting up the procedure as soon as possible.

That was at 6 p.m. They took him down at 8 p.m. Because things were happening quickly, we got to give the same general history a few times to a few different residents. But eventually, the anesthesiologist came over to explain that, with his lungs already stressed, they thought it safest to intubate him for the procedure.

And then we kissed him goodbye and they said it was a quick procedure and we’d see him soon.

The procedure actually was pretty quick. With general anesthesia, an hour and a half is really fast… and that’s about how long it took for the doctor who performed the procedure to come tell us that things had gone well. They removed about 250 cc’s (or a quarter of a liter) of milky white fluid from the sac around his lung. That doesn’t sound like a ton, until you imagine Patrick’s tiny body carrying around 8 ounces of liquid in his lung. Then it sounds like a lot. They let us see the x-rays last night. His right lung had been entirely collapsed.

She said they’d call us back soon. But then we just waited. And waited. And we finished our show. And I started a blog. And then a chaplain came looking for someone to visit. And it before we knew it an hour had passed.

(A side story about the chaplain. After visiting for a while, she asked if she could pray with us. She said the prayer and closed “In Jesus’ name.” Then after saying “Amen” she blushed and said, “I didn’t think to ask if you were Mormon.” We said that yes, we are. Then she tried to apologize for praying in Jesus’ name. So we had a minute to stop and explain that we do, in fact believe in Christ and pray in His name and that her prayer perfectly fit our method of praying… And then that’s when the doctor came.)

Back to the story – the interventional radiologist came back to tell us that they weren’t having success taking out Patrick’s breathing tube. His lungs were too weak and needed extra time to recover before they’d work properly. He was making significant progress and she was sure he’d be ok before long. But, to be safe and give him time to recover, she told us they’d keep him intubated till morning.

We were joined by a nurse manager who explained that in the hurry to get Patrick into the ICU, they’d put him into an adult room but that they were moving him to a pediatric room in under an hour and that they’d like us to wait till then to come back. We started to say, “OK. That gives us time to go clean up and move his things,” when we looked up to see one of the techs from the pediatric floor coming with a cart of things from Patrick’s room.

This kind of the last straw.. The idea that they couldn’t even wait for us to have time to get an update from his doctors before they were packing up and moving out his things. While we cleaned up, there was someone from housekeeping waiting because he’d been called to come clean the room and hospital policy requires that they respond within 5 minutes of the page. We don’t mind so much that they tried to help clean up and move the things… as the fact that he wasn’t even settled in the PICU before they had done it.

On our way out the door with the mountain of things that Patrick has accumulated during our stay, the nurse manager from the PICU came to find us to tell us that they had extubated Patrick. Ok, THIS was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Patrick was awake and we were downstairs cleaning his room and unable to go be by his side. She might have said something about “this is just how things go.” And we might have given her an earful about compassion. We are a little less angry this morning. But it’s going to be hard to bring ourselves to try to make Patrick’s next room feel homey again because it caused such a problem when he needed to move.

Anyway – with the fluid off of his lungs Patrick has been doing much better. He his heart rate is down, meaning his pain is going away. He is weaning off of oxygen. He is catching up on his very much needed sleep. His fevers are gone. His lungs are a little bit crackly, but that will probably get better once he wakes up and starts moving and breathing again.

They are still waiting for lab results about the fluid that was drained. However, right now the working theory is that he had developed a chylothorax. “A chylothorax is a type of pleural effusion. It results from lymphatic fluid (chyle) accumulating in the pleural cavity due to either disruption or obstruction of the thoracic duct.”

I asked the team to teach me this morning what it means. What it means is this… Patrick’s transplant required cutting his lymphatic system. While it heals, it might become “leaky.” When they switched him to Elecare instead of Vivonex formula, they changed the type of fatty acid he was getting. And those fatty acids go through the lymphatic system and if the system is leaking, the fats can get trapped in places like the lungs.

Most transplant kids go through this. Patrick just got it worse than others because they switched his formula over so early.

They’ll go back to Vivonex formula. They will restart feeds slowly. They’ll watch closely to see if the problem comes back. And we’ll go from there.

It means more time in the hospital for him. But, hopefully before long they’ll get him back out of the PICU and onto the pediatric floor.

Transplant Day 25 and a Bad Day

Well again, I posted last night and then went to be with Patrick and things got worse. I’m kind of afraid to hit post early tonight.. But try hard not to believe in medical jinxes.

Yesterday evening, Patrick’s fevers started to show up even with Tylenol in his system. He also started to have coughs that he couldn’t suppress. He was so miserable, he just curled up on my lap and didn’t want to move. His nurse called the resident and more cultures were ordered as well as a chest x-ray. They also started antibiotics and an antifungal. Daddy gave him a priesthood blessing, too.

And then, we just tried to let him sleep. Sometime between 3 and 5, his fever broke. By morning, he was feeling better.. but certainly was not back to himself. His cough is still bad. He’s breathing heavy. And every time the tylenol wears off, his fever comes back.

I was frustrated during the night because I just kept hearing that everything was coming back negative. However, today when the doctors rounded, they said that they’d seen a pleural effusion in the x-ray. That means that there is fluid around the outside of his lungs. That is why it is hard to breathe.

Rounds were kind of refreshing. It’s nice that our input is both welcome and helpful. I told them about what had happened overnight, Patrick’s typical infection history and medication allergies, and my own thoughts and worries.

The current working theory is that he has some kind of respiratory bug, maybe a pneumonia. But his lungs sound good and he’s on the right IV antibiotics to help. So today’s orders were wait and watch. If things get worse, they’ll do a CT scan. Welcome to the world of immune suppression.

He napped all day and woke up with lower temps but more trouble breathing. He’s spent the day in bed watching Blues Clues. Good thing kids like watching the same DVD’s 1000 times. These TV’s are too old for our chromecast to work so we are limited to just what we own physically. We have enough for about a day’s worth of Blues Clues viewing and Patrick doesn’t mind rewatching the same thing over and over again.

I have tried to keep other things moving forward. Got him officially enrolled in school. His teacher should come tomorrow if Patrick is still doing ok. Got word that the insurance company has responded to the appeal and decided to cover the Valcyte after all. Ordered some more ostomy bag samples. Convinced the team that they still want to do our discharge training early this week in case Patrick gets better over the holiday weekend.

Alas, the evening has been hard again. His fevers have reached 104 when his tylenol wears off. His heart rate is high. His oxygenation is low, but holding. And he’s having a hard time keeping his medications down.

Darn holidays. We need a better kind of holiday tradition.