Unexpected hospital visit

I'm going to write this as it happens so I don't have to play catch up. Yesterday Maddy told me she was having a little trouble breathing and her PFT's were down. She called the transplant clinic and they had her take 60mg of prednisone to get started and said to come in as soon as she can in the morning. I'm doing the morning show so I took her in with me and we came to the lung clinic as soon as I could get out of there. We got here about 9:30 and did blood work, chest X-ray, and PFT's by 11AM. The docs said they want to see why her lung functions have taken a sudden drop so they are taking her back for a bronchoscopy. Hopefully we will be able to get in and out and they will treat her at home. I'll post more after we know more.

 

12:59 PM

Dr. Floreth just came in after the bronch to give me the scoop. He told me there is a high risk of rejection a few months after having a viral infection. Because of the RSV she had back in January thay think she may be having an acute rejection episode. It will take a few days to get the results of today's bronchoscopy and know exactly what we are dealing with. Her PFT's have dropped to 40% so they are worried she may have a little trouble recovering from this procedure. They are going to give her a bolus of IV steroids while she is in recovery from the sedation and keep an eye on her for a few hours. If she is breathing ok and doesn't need oxygen in a few hours she will get to go home. Otherwise they will keep her a few days. So I continue to wait and see if we can leave today.

2:11PM

Waiting in recovery. They are busy poking and prodding Maddy because they always seem to need more blood for something. The poor kid has not been allowed to eat or drink since last night at 9PM and they expect to be able to hit a vein?!?! The first guy to try her blood draw fished around for five minutes before giving up and Maddy just sat there and took it! Then he called a nurse over to stick her and she made a snarky comment about being tattooed and not liking needles. Maddy put her in her place! "I'm not even going to debate this with you. I'm tired of hearing it, that's just a smart ass remark that is not necessary." The nurse apologized and straightened up right away. She got it in one stick and the blood was so thick it looked like molasses. Took forever to fill three tubes. What a pain in the ass!

 

She has finally been allowed to drink and sucked down the chai latte I bought her before we knew she was going in for the bronch. Feeling a little more like herself now. More to come...

Here is the steroid they give her for anti rejection. Bracing myself for the rood rage to come!

2:57PM

Maddy is having some unexpected pain issues. There is a big knot on her shoulder blade and it keeps getting worse. It just caused her to have a bit of a pain crisis a minute ago. The nurse called the doc and they are going to give her some Norco for the pain. That's a strong pain med and I hope it helps. The nurse said that when they do biopsies during the bronchoscopy there can be issues with radiating pain. Apparently the nerves in your lungs don't actually work as pain receptors but the recognize that there has been damage, removal of tissue from the biopsy, and it causes pain receptors elsewhere to react. Causing the pain in her back. I hope the plan is still to send her home but only time will tell...

4:30PM

Going home! Maddy's pain is under control. They are calling in a prescription for more pain meds in case she needs them. Her O2 levels are fine and her chest X-ray came out clear. So we are good to go!

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