Drew is certainly getting his fair share of obstacles for the start of his life. Saturday when Ryan and I went to see him he looked good. His repogle (tube that sucks out the saliva) kept clogging (which isn't abnormal), but his saliva was a yucky color.
Sunday after church we got a call that the nurses had been concerned because his oxygen was dropping and he was coughing, so they had done a chest x-ray. That was inconclusive, so they wanted permission to do a CAT Scan. In doing that they found fluid in his chest. They thought it was outside the lung, but when they inserted a chest tube they didn't get any fluid out. So they decided it was in the lung and with the help of an ultrasound placed a chest tube in his lung. They got 12 cc's of chocolate colored fluid out immediately. During all this they had also put him on a ventilator, so that he wouldn't have to work so hard to expand his lungs.
They tested the fluid and found that it had infection and yeast growing in it. So now he is on a different anti-biotic, plus two that he had already, and an anti-fungal. He will have both the chest tube and the ventilator until the infection is cleared.
The fluid had come (they think) from a leak in the lower part of his esophagus where it was open from the first surgery. So basically his food was leaking out and somehow got to his lung. We had been told they would do surgery to close it off again, but this morning the nurse said they were going to wait and hope that it would repair itself. Drew has been fed by IV since Sunday and will not start feedings again until the infection is gone.
I hope all of this makes some sense. I am still a little baffled at all of it. Oh, and he also had another blood transfusion Sunday night.
Meanwhile, I got the bug that's been going around and haven't been able to see my little guy since Saturday. I call several times a day to check in and pray for him, but that's about all I can do. We can't hold him until the chest tube is out and he's off the vent anyway, but it's still hard not to see him. Hopefully by Thurs I'll feel healthy enough to go see him again.
On a positive note, Tyler is getting over his cold. And I am so grateful for watchful nurses who know when to investigate problems. If we can just get through all this infection, things should go pretty smoothly afterwards. I just keep thinking healing, growing, positive thoughts for now though.