Monday, 3/28

Today was quite a frustrating day. Dinky was a little up and down because he had some collapse of his left lung. He had several "episodes" and was requiring a little more oxygen than usual. He was a little better by this afternoon.

Adding to the frustration was that what we had been told since last Thursday was the plan for Monday...didn't happen. As with most teaching hospitals the attending physician changes every 2 weeks and often can change throughout the course of a week (especially on a holiday). With the change in physician usually comes a change in plan which can prove very frustrating. We were anticipating that Dinky would get the dose of Indocin to treat his PDA but the current physician didn't think that was a high priority. So it's difficult to be "flexible" on a day to day basis when one day you're told something's a priority and the next day it's not. My head is starting to pound again even thinking about it so I think I'll leave this paragraph at that :)

The "plan" for tomorrow is to do a bronchoscopy to check to see if there might be a connection, or "fistula" that was missed early on. Dinky was born with a fistula, or connection, between his trachea and esophagus (this was fixed in his first surgery) and the concern is that there's another one and that that's what's causing the frequent collapse of his lungs (because too much fluid passes from his esophagus into his trachea and then into his lungs). The "bronch" is a "procedure in which a tube with a tiny camera on the end is inserted through the nose or mouth into the lungs. The procedure provides a view of the airways of the lung". They are able to do the procedure at his bedside so it shouldn't take too much out of him. There was a bit of a delay in doing it because they had to wait until the teeny tiny bronchoscopy instrument arrived. So we'll be anxious to get the results of this.

To be continued...