Back From the Hospital
We have been in the hospital since Sunday night with Gorbulas. On Sunday he woke up with what appeared to be croup. I called the doctor and she told me that the treatment for croup and asthma are the same, so to be vigilant with his nebuliser treatments.
At first the treatments eased his wheezing, then around 5 PM, they did not do so, even when we administered them back to back. We called our doctor and brought him in. His O2 was very low (82 percent) and he was clearly stressed. The doctor admitted him to the hopsital as immediately.
I went and stayed with him. The first thing they did was give him a chest x-ray. The next morning, the nebuliser treatments were still not taking effect and he could not stay saturated with O2 on his own. The doctor reviewed his x-ray and said it looked like his left lung was collapsed. They took a second x-ray to make sure that it indeed was collapsed. As a result they called the surgeon in.
The surgeon put up his x-rays and showed us his chest cavity where his lung should have been, was 3/4 of the way empty. Treatment was inserting a chest tube. Ugh.
The head thoracic surgeon came into our room, clapped his hands and asked “whose staying to watch?” I could not. I took my rosary and stayed down the hall, but my husband stayed to watch. They gave Gorbulas something to “consciously sedate” him. He did not stay sedated too long because I heard him screaming down the hall as they put the chest tube in. I prayed to Mary that this was a small moment where I could imagine in a small way how she felt when her son was being crucified.
As soon as he had the chest tube put in, he could breathe and stopped coughing. He was also very drugged up on tylenol with codeine. They took the tube out yesterday, and so far he is doing very well, but is still wheezing. The doctor said he is not out of the woods yet, but he allowed him to go home.
Yesterday morning his nurse said to me:
Nurse:He is getting quite the reputation.
Me: For what?
Nurse:Because of how cute he is. Every report about him is finished with “he is so cute and has beautiful eyes”
Me:Oh
Nurse:It is amazing how well he is doing. He is such a little guy and has been through a lot in the past few days. It says a lot about you and your husband. We see so many kids in here that are so screwed up because of their family life, and it affects their recovery…
Me: Oh gosh, crop it up to attachment parenting.