shit. fans. hitting. clean-up ensues.

after a couple of weeks, that were as lovely as possible considering the situation, Ford spent the past few days reminding us of how very sick he is. it's been a hard few days and we're worse for the wear.

oh the usual trauma and near death experiences - bleeds, blood clots, heated debates surrounding his enoxaparin, hypotension, bradycardia, being resuscitated with albumin but not being so far gone to need epinephrine (bonus!), "personality conflicts" with staff, oxygen sats tanking out, CO2 flying sky high, resp rate nearing 100....

some things normalize over time (like tubes up noses), some things don't (ie near death experiences).

amidst the above, Ford had an MRI of his head - the process of which triggered the 4th-6th items listed, and today, an insertion of a drainage tube into his chest to "tap" the pleural effusion that had been increasing over the past few days and causing the last 4 items mentioned.

in anticipation of the chest tube insertion, the CCU docs made the controversial decision to hold his morning enoxaparin dose - a subject that inspires great anxiety in me, and also triggered, over the past couple days, many tears.

uncharacteristically he's been asleep since wednesday morning. he can wake up - he does when you change his diaper, because he hates it when you change his diaper - but he won't bother to open his eyes and slips back into sleep as soon as you let him.

that said, poor little one was so swollen this morning from the "fluid push" yesterday he couldn't open his eyes even if he wanted to.

the chest tube insertion went very well. they were prepared for him to react as he did to the MRI (nearly dying), but he remained stable and 210mls came out of the tube straight away. and it's still coming. that's a lot of fluid for a little chest and it's been putting a lot of pressure on a little lung.

he should have some better days soon. already, with that much drained, his resps, CO2 and sats are trending back to safer ground.