Chest pain

Shortly after I posted yesterday's update I got a text from Maddy saying he right side of her chest hurt really bad. So bad she felt she may have had part of her lung collapse. I put in a call to the doctor and rushed home. She was able to breathe but couldn't take a deep breath. She was still coughing s lit and every time she coughed she would breathe in deep and said it felt like someone was stabbing her. We checked her O2 saturation and that was at 99%. It took quite a while for the doctor to call back. He said if she is saturating ok then try taking some pain meds and come see him tomorrow morning. If the pain is too much to take then go to the ER. The doc called in a pein medication for her to CVS and she soldered through the pain for the rest of the day.

Maddy said the pain has been happening a little since she started using the machine. Usually she would wake up with a sharp pain in one side or the other but it would go away after a short while. Yesterday she got up around 10 with the pain and it just never went away. She texted me by 11:15 but it took until 1:30 to get through to the doctor then 3:00 before we actually got any pain meds into her.

Up and to the doctor this morning by 7:15. They just did a pulmonary function test, which was almost impossible for Maddy to do because she can't take a deep breath. She got an indreadable 11% of predicted! No surprise there. I'm hoping it's just that low because she can't take a really deep breath. Waiting on the doctor to come in and see her now then decide what kind of imaging to do. The nurse mentioned they may have to do a scan for blood clots. I hadn't even thought about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism.

Dr. Floreth came in and said that they were going to get a chest X-ray. He asked if the pain meds were helping and she said not really. He told us that his goal was to make sure she had the pain management that she needed. He mentioned that where her lung functions are they may have to call in Hospice to help her manage the pain and have someone to care for her at home. They gave her two Norco before sending her up for the X-ray. After eye X-ray I checked with her and she said the pain is a little better.

Doc just came in and said the X-ray was abnormal. No collapsed lung but there is a lot of information in her lower left lung. Either infection or rejection. He wants to put her in the hospital and get a CT scan to see if he can get a better look at what going on. It's too dangerous to do a bronchoscopy and take biopsies at this point so we are going to have to try and treat this from scans as best we can. He wants to start her on some steroids and antibiotics and hopefully she can cough up a good sample so they can check for infection.

He also told her that she has the right at any time now to say "I'm done with hospitals" and he will send her home with hospice. He thinks they can knock this out a bit and get he back on her feet. But he will call in hospice to come talk to us while she's in and start working on a plan in case they can't get her better.

I'll update again tonight or tomorrow after things have settled in a bit or when we know more.

Posted with Blogsy