PRESSSSSSURES

Happy humpday! I have been trying to break the girl free for three days now! I need the bird to fly the nest! The problem that is keeping her here is her blood pressure. She came into the hospital in septic shock over 2 weeks ago, and her pressures have not been the same since. The other day, she was 70-something over 40-something. She is hanging in the 80s over 50s for the most part, which COULD be fine, but her MAP is under 60, which is not fine. The Dr. said this morning, if she can keep her systolic in the high 90s for most of the day, we may be able to discharge this eve. Prayers up please, good vibes please, toes-fingers-and legs crossed please! :)

Too Many Weird Things

I do not understand what is happening with Sis this admission, and I don't even know where to start, in telling you guys everything that is and has been going on. As far as her respiratory infection, that is darn near gone, thank God! She is only requiring 1L of oxygen, that's nothing! :) HOWEVER- her electrolytes, blood pressure, cardiac function, GI system.... It's just been so crazy, and I welcome any anecdotal stories or suggestions. As far as her bloodwork, her potassium & magnesium keep dropping. They will give her supplementation and it pops them up, but they drop again. She continues to have A-fib arrythmia randomly throughout the day. She keeps having moments in the day where her blood pressure is dangerously low- with a MAP of 56-58, and her heartrate wants to hang in the 40s, but will literally bounce up to 70, and back to 40 with no movement from her. Currently, her oxygen saturation looks beautiful on the monitor, but her face and lips are very pale, cold, and she is "OUT" if you will. They gave her a bag of albumin, but it did not raise her BP, the nurse did a sternal rub to see if she would respond to pain, and she did. Her blood sugar was normal.I am at a loss right now with why all of these weird things keep happening, and how do we get her back to her stable baseline if the pneumonia is basically gone?

*KNOCK KNOCK* Is anyone still out there? It has been maaaaaaaany moons since we last spoke. I missed you all! :) In Keeping up with my tradition, I am only posting when Kira girl is in the hospital. Sorry to turn this blog into basically a "Dear diary" of sorts for Kira's illnesses. I realized that I never even updated with what happened when she went in for her port replacememnt surgery. Long story short, it was the scariest admission she has eve had. She was in for 5 weeks and coded for the first time. If you go back to Sissy's origins, you will see that I always knew her life would be short, but time after time, this fighter keeps showing me what a warrior she truly is, and God keeps letting me know He is right there. That admission though...10 minutes of respiratory arrest, how could I not think that was "it"? Miraculously, it wasn't. <3 This beautiful human has had an amazing almost 3 years of good health. As much as we love our friends at Kaiser, We love our home more! But, in true Kira Jean Beauty Queen fashion, she was in the throws of a serious illness before I barely knew what happened. We have been in the hospital now for 5 days, and we are experiencing SO many firsts. Who knew that after 19 years, there were still "firsts" to be had. Kira has pneumonia (surprise!) with 2 different bacteria in her precious lungs. She only presented with signs of a possible illness on Friday, and when I brought her in on Sunday, she was septic and went into septic shock. Less than 24 hours after arriving to the emergency department, she developed C-diff, and a GI ileus. So she has an infection with bacteria in her lungs, and an infection with bacteria in her intestines. The tricky thing here is that the infection in her intestines is caused by the antibiotics treating her lungs, and the antibiotics to treat the intestinal infection battles against the antibiotics for the lungs. Tricky, tricky, tricky. Something that I am not a fan of, and don't come for me, is that she was admitted to the adult side of the hospital since she is now over 18, instead of the peds and PICU floor that we have known all of her life. Let me tell you.... culture shock. The rooms here do not have any cute, colorful, or uplifting decor- instead, they are crammed tightly with walkers folded against the wall and a commode (toilet) sitting politely next to my chair-bed. One may say, "Who cares what the room LOOKS & FEELS like, it's about the care given." I would tell that person that they are absolutely correct, and remember when I started this topic saying, "I am not a fan"... We miss PICU and there needs to be a way for her to be treated over there, by a team who KNOWS her extrememly unique and fragile ways (also, who have known her most of her life and genuinely have love for her, so her care is top notch.) Nothing like getting a crash course in the same things you are learning about in class...