MOVING RIGHT ALONG - PROGRESS IS GOOOOOOD

Colby had been showing slow (very slow) but steady progress until a few days ago. His flu symptoms thwere gone, fever was gone, settings are the vent were reasonable, back to room air on his oxygen. Then he kinda hit a plateau. An ultrasound showed that the problem area on his right lung was more collapse than fluid. So how do you fix this? You can give it more time. We'd given it 12 days or so. You can increase treatments. This didn't apply to Colby, good grief we've been doing MetaNeb and cough assist treatments around the clock since he's been here, long with a combo of Atrovent, saline, Xopenex and Pulmozyme to help break up/thin the stuff before we cough it out of him. Another option was to do a bronchoscopy, which I agreed to, and Colby had done yesterday around 1:30.

If ever there would be a child to complicate a simple procedure, it would be Colby Michael! Apparently there is an area in Colby's lung that is compressed. In the right middle "tube" that runs through his lung. So he has collapse of the lung itself and compression of the tube running through the lung. Make sense? They seem to think it's from his scoliosis, but I don't know about all that. Regardless, the bronch took longer than I wanted. The few hours after the bronch were shaky. That's to be eexpected after someone rummages around in your lungs for a while. We had to go back up on Colby's oxygen, from 21% to 30%. Plus he was requiring extra suctioning and coughs between his regular 3-hour treatments! I thought, oh know, what have I done? I've let them do a procedure that's going to set Colby back. Luckily after a few hours and with his 8:30 cough tmt, he calmed down a bit. Thank God because I was a complete nervous wreck.

Long story short, the bronch was a success. I looked at his xray this morning, and it is his BEST xray to date. There is finally some change for the better in his right lung. He is now back on room air, 21% oxygen. Now that his lung has popped back open, we've decreased the PEEP on his vent (this is a good thing).

Plan for today? Not much as little as possible for Colby. He needs to rest and get ready for his surgeries tomorrow. They are scheduled for 10:30. He's having a port placed and also have his dental extractions done. Yay, get Colby in the best shape he's been this hospital stay, then drag him off to surgery! The procedures need to be done, though, so we're moving ahead and getting them done.

Thanks much for the "hang in there" calls, texts, Facebook posts, etc. This hospital stay is NOTHING compared to the last one. I've been pretty bumme, though. Better, much better, since these decisions about bronch and surgeries have been made. And of course it doesn't hurt that Colby is more like his sweet, silly, Spongebob loving self. I know so many of you pray and send warm and fuzzy thoughts to us all the time, but especially when Colby is in the hospital. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. My family appreciates it. I tell Colby all the time he is so loved and that hopefully he can "feel the love" when he's fighting all this crap. I need to run. Dad just brought me a piece of toffee from the gift shop. I want it, I need it, I'm gonna have it!! More later.