Day 456 - 🏥 Going to the ER on his Trachaversary!
Thursday, March 31st, 2022
One year ago today James had his tracheostomy surgery. This year went by so fast!
Mom noticed that James had been having retractions all day with a fast respiratory rate. After posting to the Trach Moms Facebook group asking for their advice it was a resounding Yes to take him to the ER.
*For context the lung retraction video below was taken at 7:45pm. It just so happen to be Trach change Thursday so we wiped him down and changed his trach before heading to the ER, since we didn't know how long we would be there. James then fell asleep because that's what he does after trach care. He is used to his nightly routine. We called the pediatrician to let them know we were heading to the ER. They said that was a good idea so that we could get a lung x-ray and sputum culture.
We arrived around 10:30pm. Unfortunately only one parent could enter at a time, so Dad stayed in the parking lot while Mom registered and waited in the lobby. We were brought back to an ER room at 11:30pm. To sum things up... between the nurse, the NP, and the Doctor we were told so many different things. The NP just wanted to know what needed to happen in order for Mom to be comfortable with being discharged. The nurse wouldn't stop talking about how she is the only good nurse left in the ER because everyone else is a traveler. And the Doctor was very concerned for James and definitely wanted to admit us to the PICU. This made it really hard for Mom to update Dad because as soon as we thought we were being discharged, we were being admitted.
Lots of testing. They got X-rays of his lungs and his belly. They tested him for viral infections, Covid, RSV, MRSA. He had several nasal swabs. The nurse had to stick him 3 times for an IV. This was the first time Mom saw him hyperventilate. It was awful. Mom can't stand nurses that get frustrated with babies. Guess what, he is going to move. They need to learn to be gentle. So they looked at his blood for CO2 levels. They got a sputum culture that would take 72 hours for results. Then they needed to do X-rays again because the computer "lost it". No problem just unnecessary radiation! 🤬 Results took forever to get back but essentially everything was fine. Still waiting on the sputum culture results though. James just finished an antibiotic a week ago on Friday. This wasn't the greatest ER experience between the miscommunication and the egos from the RN and RT, Mom was ready to head to the PICU.
It took 4½ hours to get admitted into the PICU, which was now 4:45am. We were put back in the room we were discharged from 7 months ago. Once we were all settled we found out the medical crib James was in was broken and that needed to be switched out. Our favorite Director was on-call in the PICU. But of course Mom had to watch an RT get trained on disconnecting and changing circuits. At 5am Mom was not about to witness an incident switching James' circuit so she jumped in to help the newbie that was being overdelagated to. The hospital staff was nice, but at this point no one is more qualified than Mom or Dad. In fact, we would rather not even have people come in the room. Too many mistakes and lack of knowledge. We're just over it.
It's going to be a long day tomorrow...😩😫😳🥱
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| ER Lobby |
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| Upset about the x-rays |
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| Poked 3 times trying to get an IV started |
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| Doesn't like the arm board |
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| It's freezing in the ER 🥶 |
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| Finally getting up to the PICU at 4:45am |
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