Andrew and I got to the hospital (after a fairly restful night) at about noon. The nurse kept us out of the room because Ricky had just had umm, just started to unplug, and there was a mess being cleaned up. She told me that Ricky's blood oxygen levels had started to drop overnight, into the high 80s, so he had gone for a chest x-ray in the morning. Since then the saturations had gone up into the low 90s, which is still low for him.
Eventually we got to go in and see Ricky, who was all cleaned up (along with his room). We hung out with him for a while, but as we did his oxygen saturation was dropping and dropping. 90, 89, 88, 87... As far down as 86. Nobody did anything. I finally went and talked to the nurse. Were they going to do anything about his oxygen levels dropping?? The nurse finally paged the respiratory therapist.
The respiratory therapist came and did a treatment. Ricky had been feeling too poorly to do his vest but at least he did the treatment. Problem was, though it did bring his sats up to the low 90s, they dropped back to 86ish right after that.
I went and asked the nurse to page the resident so I could ask about the x-ray and the plan for treatment. I waited for the resident for almost an hour before I had to go get Misty from her dad's.
We got Misty and came back... The resident had just left. D'oh. They paged her and she came to talk to me. She said that his chest x-ray was actually much improved. She thought it was possible, though, that he had aspirated during the traumatic NG tube placement the night before and the resulting congestion just wasn't showing up on the x-ray yet. He also had a small portion of possibly collapsed lung on the lower left. She said it was okay for him to be on oxygen if he needed it.
I asked whether the NG tube could be pulled soon. She said they wanted his stools to be clear before they'd take it out. He has a long way to go before he gets to that, it sounds like... He was very full of poop the last time they did an x-ray of it.
After the resident left, Ricky's O2 saturation continued to deteriorate. It never got about 90 after awhile (before that, it had been fluctuating a bit). He had fallen asleep and a nurse came in and put the oxygen mask on him. He doesn't like cannulas even under normal circumstances, and especially when he has the NG tube in. The problem with the mask is that they have to crank the O2 up to 6 liters or it isn't effective.
Ricky slept for several hours. He slept with his brow knit into a wrinkled expression -- he was clearly not feeling well. When he woke up he was still drowsy and looking uncomfortable. He lay there looking sad and in pain for the rest of the time we were there. He had another breathing treatment as well.
When it was time to go, it was really, really hard to leave Ricky. I gave him a hug and a kid and told him I love him. He said he loved me too and squeezed my hand. My poor guy. I hope he got good rest last night.
This morning I spoke with Ricky and he sounded cheerful. Yay. :) He is still on O2 and still has the NG tube but it sounds like maybe he did get that rest.
Going up to see him shortly.
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