The good first... Elijah has been fever free for over 24 hours. They were able to pull out his chest tube and the wires that were attached to his heart. They were also able to wean down on the oxygen so that he could be fed through his feeding tube. They even decided to remove the oxygen all together and see how he handles it. So far, so good. He is actually breathing better without the oxygen than he was with the oxygen.
Now for the not so good... Elijah had a very rough night last night. With the constant interruptions and his already restless sleep, he was unable to really sleep at all. By the morning both he and I were a wreck. Elijah was inconsolable during the night and into the morning. He couldn't focus on you or really even make eye contact. During rounds, the doctors discussed his breathing further and they really do not know why he breathes so fast. His lung function is good, as is his heart.
The attending was concerned that perhaps Elijah is experiencing delirium, or ICU induced psychosis. He called in a psychiatrist. Do you know how strange it is to sit down with a psychiatrist to discuss the mental health of your 4 month old? Let me tell you, it was surreal. As you can assume, it is very hard to diagnose in an infant. They do have medicine to treat the condition, however, I would like to do everything else before we turn to medicine. They are going to reduce the amount of interruptions during the night and stop giving him adovan. We are going to try to "reset" his internal clock and make sure he gets caught up on sleep. Today's nurse gave him some benadryl and left him alone to take a 3 hour nap. He was so incredibly exhausted that he couldn't even fall asleep without some help. We made sure no one one came in the room to interrupt his sleep. When he finally woke up, he was able to focus on our faces and he was not crying. He seemed at peace for he first time in days. Hopefully tonight goes well and we may even be able to feed him a bottle tomorrow. Wish us luck!
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