Today Caden was moved out of the PCICU to the 7th floor of the Children’s Hospital. He is in his own room and Sherry is staying with him tonight. I stayed in the PCICU with him last night. We were just not 100% comfortable with leaving him. He had gone back on compressed (normal) feedings and that raised the potential for reflux. The PCICU doctors had never seen Caden reflux since he was never fed much until after moving out of the PCICU when in the hospital that first time. We were afraid that the staff in the PCICU might not realize what was normal for Caden and decide to start changing things out of fear that the severe reflux was tied to his respiratory problems. Caden’s reflux is very difficult to describe and tends to scare the pants off of just about everyone who witnesses it for the first time. Imagine a normal moderate to heavy spit up from a 4 month old baby. Now imagine it all coming out the nose like a running faucet. It is not a pretty sight, but is unfortunately a frequent occurrence with Caden that has nothing to do with his current condition.
We believe that he will likely be released from the hospital before the weekend is over. Caden is breathing much easier and slower on average than he was yesterday. He is still having short spells of heavy and/or fast breathing but those spells are becoming less frequent. Caden is having some pretty fussy spells that are hard to figure out. We think that he is just uncomfortable with the oxygen and monitoring leads. He has six separate monitoring leads plus an IV line and oxygen. Oh yeah, his feeding tube too. This is quite a mess of cables and hoses that he has not seen since New Years day.
Caden did get a blood transfusion today as well. They even had to start a new IV since the one that he originally got on Thursday clogged earlier today. The blood was given primarily to replace all that has been drawn to do lab tests that can give accurate measurements of his current respiratory condition.
Sherry and I are doing pretty good. Many of you are lifting us up in prayer. We have also had a few visitors that have just warmed our hearts. We had a visit yesterday at around 1 PM from two friends who had just come from another floor of the hospital where they had lost a loved one within the previous hour. We knew they were there with their Aunt. I greeted them at the door of the ICU and asked how their Aunt was doing. They told me that she had gone to be with Jesus just about an hour earlier. I wanted to say I was sorry, but quickly realized that this was actually a happy day for their Aunt. This Aunt was over 90 years of age and was ready to go home. She had lived with our friend for about 14 years. They told me that they expected her to go home yesterday, but ended up getting surprised that it was not an Earthly home that she returned to yesterday. I can not express to you how much it warmed my heart to have them stop to visit Caden and us at such a time in their lives. They are good Christian people as was their Aunt. I believe that a close walk with the Lord makes it much easier to accept the passing of a loved one. I know that it made the passing of my grandfather just a few weeks ago seem more like a “see you later” moment than a “good bye”. For this reason I can understand why they were so at peace with the loss of their Aunt who had a wonderful and longer life than many of us will be blessed with.
I hope you are inspired by the events that I have shared with you today. God is at work in our lives and he is answering prayers. Your prayers are being answered and are greatly appreciated by us. God bless you.
Hank O