back in the hospital :(

Ricky's back in the hospital.

It all happened rather quickly, actually. Sunday night after he had done all of his breathing treatments, he informed me that he was wheezy and his chest was tight. I put my ear to his chest and I could hear whistling and rumbling. This should not have been the case after his treatments. I called the CF doc on call and he told me to give Ricky treatments every three hours all night. I had Ricky sleep next to me (he has a loft bed, which would have been difficult to deal with) and I did the treatments throughout the night.

In the morning, things were not much better. I called in sick, and called the CF nurse to let her know. She called back a while later and, to my surprise, said they would be directly admitting Ricky. This hasn't happened in a long time. Usually we have to go through the emergency room first.

I packed a bag for Ricky and we headed up to the hospital. He fell asleep on the way and was still sleepy and woozy when we got there, so I put him in a wheelchair. He was definitely short of breath. He got admitted fairly quickly and then it was so much hurry-up-and-wait.

It was nearly impossible to get him to wake up. I had to hold him and stand on the scale. Yes, he weighs about 100 pounds. Urgh! Because he came in with a cough (duhhh... He has CF) they had to do a nasal swab to test for "flu A" which I understand includes swine flu. We couldn't get him to cooperate, and he was still sleepy, so I had to help two nurses and a CNA hold him down so another nurse could swab his nose. That was tough. :(

After that he was moved, still sleeping, to a double-doored isolation room just in case he did have the flu. I still think it's unlikely since he didn't have a fever (though he rarely does) or any other flu symptoms...

When he woke up, after several hours, I accessed his port (these days he only likes me to do it, sigh) and he started being infused. I left to get Misty from her dad's and Andrew from home, and brought them back up to see Ricky for a while. Then we headed home at Misty's bedtime.

Today I went to work and I got a call within the first hour to tell me that Ricky's port had been contaminated, and they couldn't risk infection by using it any longer. He would need to be reaccessed, but he apparently still only trusted me to do it. *sigh* So after my 10:00 meeting I drove up there and took care of getting him deaccessed, numbed (found a new numbing patch that is GREAT, works way better than the topical ointment we use at home to flush the port), and accessed.

The nurse informed me that Ricky had refused to use his chest therapy vest this morning. *sigh* So I hung around and made sure that he used it for his afternoon treatment. Then I left, because we were celebrating Misty's birthday (which was yesterday) at my mom's.

I got a call as the other two kids and I were leaving my mom's, from Ricky's nurse. She informed me that he had been sleeping since approximately 3:00 and was refusing to take his evening meds. I talked to him on the phone and he just kept saying he was tired. *sigh* The nurse said they'd try at 8 to give him all of his evening meds and that she'd call me if there were any problems. It's almost midnight and I haven't heard a peep so I guess that's good news.

Tomorrow I need to ask about the flu test, yesterday's and today's chest x-rays, and today's pulmonary function testing. Just wondering if this will be a short stay or a looong stay. Or maybe somewhere in between.

So far he is taking his Miralax okay, as far as I know. So hopefully no bowel blockage this time...

Guess that's all for now.