Jaymun Foundation
Lung Infection?
| 10/08/2009 |
5:45 AM
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Jaymun's eyes and face look puffier this morning (edemitous).
He is still sedated and coming off the paralytics. A few times I saw his
shoulders heave as he tried to take a breath.
Jaymun's fever (38.5) persists. Blood pressure 93/46. Remember, we had a positive culture from his vent tube - so he is back on broad-spectrum antibiotics. The nurse said she has seen kids spike fevers for weeks with one of these infections and we hope it does not turn into pneumonia. |
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Overnight I looked at the literature for nebulized anti-microbials ...down in Ohio they are working on silver nano-particle stuff for CF patients - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19395021. For that application the trick was time-release.
I actually have a silver-sol antimicrobial which can be nebulized. It's not time-release so it should work faster for Jaymun. However, we are unsure if the ultrasonic nebulizer built into the ventilator will handle it ...so at some point we may get RT (respiratory therapy) to bag him for a few minutes in order to nebulize this and try to help knock out this infection.
Pray that this doesn't drag out over time ...that Jaymun will be able to wake up soon without mechanical ventilation.
Everything we do is to help Jaymun recover as quickly as possible and wrap his little arms around us again.
If the cancer has it's way, even after recovery from this crisis our time with him here may only be measured by weeks.
We trust our Father in Heaven to lead is through this "impossible" situation.
10:00 AM
By evaluating Jaymun's lung xray and secretions they do not think he has a lung infection ...probably just a colonization of the tube. They started vancomycin to protect him from infection. We are not sure where his fever is coming from. Brain injury? Leukemia? Infection?
He is hyperchloremic and hypernatremic (see today's labs). The hypernatremia (high sodium) we did on purpose over the past week to reduce brain volume ...now we need to correct that very slowly.
We agreed on rounds this morning to try the "stomach motility" approach I suggested yesterday. I'm going to put in the herbal doses, leave them sit for a while, then administer erythromycin which should make the stomach contract and push things on through into the intestines. Not sure how many times we will need to do this. Adding erythromycin is probably not so good for intestinal probiotics, but he is on broad-spectrum IV antibiotics so we probably have to start over from scratch there anyway. At least if I can push a few doses of aloe-vera juice (healing), liquid chlorophyll (healing/nutrient), slippery elm (for artificial mucilage), green tea (anti-microbial), etc. (dose/studies) ...that may help with the intestinal ileus (besides getting the benefits of green tea for improved renal and liver function). Once things are moving, we can always go back to the probiotics.
11:55 PM
"Stomach Motility" didn't work. We tried the erythromycin twice. If anything it increase the amount of residual stomach fluids. I'd put in 45cc worth, leave for an hour, put erythro in and an hour later pull out 60cc.
