An Overnight Stay (March 6-7)

Thursday March 6

Our scheduled GI appointment got moved to Thursday at 1pm so Dr. A, Beau’s cardiologist, also said she would squeeze Beau in today as well.

After waiting for over an hour just to see the GI doc, we explained our concerns with the retching, heaving, and reflux that Beau is having.  The GI doc said though Beau is a candidate for a G-tube, at this time he wanted to schedule an upper GI exam to get a closer look at his anatomy. He did a little change to his reflux med.  The doctor was actually a bit concerned about Beau’s respirations today as they seemed high with some retractions so he called for an x-ray. 

We headed down to x-ray (now after 3pm) but had to wait for almost another hour before getting the x-ay completed!  Ugh… this day was not going as planned.  Once we completed we headed to the laboratory because Dr. A mentioned we needed to get labs done for Beau before coming to her.  So we arrived and there was no order for Beau to get labs… it’s now 4:30pm and the pediatric clinic is closed.  So I had them call up to Dr. A. as my phone had no service and she was still there waiting for us... oh I felt so terrible.  Well, then the hospital corpsman (clinical tech in the Navy) decides to do a heel prick to draw blood instead of a needle draw so that took even longer than anticipated. 

We got upstairs to cardiology FINALLY and Dr. A did a quick echo on Beau.  She also saw the x-ray was showing pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs).  She was also not comfortable with his high respirations and wanted to have him admitted immediately.  So we made our way up to the pediatric unit and got ourselves settled in.  They were not able to get an IV in Beau (he's becoming popular for being a hard stick) but they were watching him carefully and bumped up his diuretics.  Thankfully, I have learned to bring Beau's medications and extra Monogen formula (which the hospital doesn't carry) whenever we come to the hospital... just in case.

 Happy as always, even at the hospital.

I stayed overnight with him and he did very well... by morning he looked MUCH better.  They did another x-ray and it looked way better than yesterday and his lungs sounded good as well. So they did the paperwork for discharge and we were home by dinnertime on Friday.  

                                This face is so funny!


Before bed, Andrew and I were looking through Beau's discharge papers to find that he was admitted with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)... EEEK I'm glad Dr. A didn't tell me that before hand or I might have begun to really worry. I'm not exactly sure what she saw on his echo before admitting us but CHF is associated with pulmonary edema and heart difficulties leading to retention of fluid causing congestion.  Just to clarify, it does NOT mean the heart stopped working!  

So once again we are glad the staff at the hospital kept a watchful eye over our sweetie and we're glad to be back home! 

I know the Lord is always with me.  

I will not be shaken, for He is right beside me.  

Psalm 16.8