The Wreck cont'd

When another doctor looked at Luke's EEG, he said it looked like fat in the white matter of his brain. He said that they were fat embolisms, and they would dissolve on their own. Usually when a patient has these rare embolisms, they have severe respiratory issues. At this point, Luke was breathing on his own with just a tiny amount of oxygen by binasal cannula (like 2-4L). Because he looked so good from a respiratory standpoint, it took them a while to diagnose him with fat embolism syndrome.  If you read about FES, you will also see that setting the broken bone ass quick as possible is so important! They gave him a feeding tube through his nose so he would have nutrition, and basically told me to "Hurry up and wait." Dr. Fabian and Dr. Croce are the two head docs at The Med, and they are amazing!! Dr. Fabian gently explained to my mom that recovery could take months. I cannot explain enough how amazing all the drs were in explaining and guiding us through all of this. We are so lucky to have The Med in Memphis!

On Tuesday, we were so thrilled when Luke squinted his eyes to the light being turned on. He also would move his feet when we tickled them and he pulled out two of his IVs. That got his arms put in restraints. It is hard to look back on this now, because we were so excited and it seems like it was nothing! We were excited because he squinted his eyes? They also put in a central line (which I suggested the day before b/c of the multiple IV sticks), and he had to get some blood. All of the lab values I had long since forgotten about from nursing school came back pretty quickly. They drew labs each am, and then supplemented him with whatever he needed that day. All of our friends had been asking for ways to help. That morning, I thought of two things I needed: pictures of the kids and deodorant for Luke. I emailed two friends who work downtown, and within the hour of me sending this email, I had a dozen 8x10 pictures of my babies. By lunch, I had deodorant for Luke. My friends helped us out in ways they will never know mattered! I got my mom to call our preacher, and he and our shepherds came up to the hospital. Mark (our preacher) annointed Luke with oil and then prayed over him with my mom and me. The shepherds stood in the hallway and were praying, and my dear friend had asked the rest of our church to pray at Luke at 6:00 as well. When Mark touched Luke with the oil, he opened his eyes for the first time on his own. No deep sternal rub, no pulling of chest hairs. He opened his eyes.

Later that night, we got you really riled up and you opened your eyes for us again (with agitation-and he was so determined. He was sweating, his RR was up). We called the nurse in there, and she was just as excited as we were. She called the chief resident (Dr Decocoa whom I also love), and she clapped with joy. Three times in a row he opened his eyes for us! Dr Decocoa had been very guarded in her optimism up until this point. Her team was good, but I noticed that none of the other young female residents would make eye contact with me. I know they were thinking, "Bless her heart. This is bad." After we got him all worked up, he never could quite get his respiratory rate back down. This caused his O2 sats to drop as well. About 2:00 am, the nurse paged Dr Decocoa, and b/c she was in a trauma, Dr Croce (big wig) came in. He thought it would be good to go ahead and put Luke on the ventilator to allow his body to rest while he was trying to dissolve these fat embolisms. He was so kind and explained it to me and allowed me to ask questions. I told him when I think of an embolism, I think blockage and death of tissue. He said that it was more of a biochemical repsonse, and there was no death of tissue, just a delay in sending/recieving messages. When the CRNA came in to do the intubation, one of my favorite friends from nursing school came in with him. She is in CRNA school, and it was such a comfort to have her standing there holding my hand while Dr Croce explained everything to me. Once again, a familiar face at 2 am at The Med when I needed it the most. When they let me back in about 5 am, he was already calmed down, and breathing on his own over the vent. We got moved from our 2 patient room to one next door that was a private room. They also did a bronchoscopy to make sure his lungs were ok and put in an ICP bolt. The bolt went through his head and screwed into his skull to monitor the pressure in his brain.

And then, we just let him sleep.