Stuck

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't posted in a while.  This has all become quite exhausting.  Pam was doing fantastic on Tuesday, sitting up in her bed, talking more, things were looking good.  Then on Wed. she has some sort of skin reaction that caused a really hard day.  She basically scratched and itched herself into complete exhaustion.  I think every doctor at DHMC came and looked at her.  They took a skin biopsy, stopped all meds, tried new meds, tried some creams, nothing.  It was incredibly hard to watch her go through this.  She was in alot of discomfort and it was making her breathing harder and harder.  By 6pm they had to put the breathing tube back in due to exhaustion.  Her x-rays did not look any better than a few days before and we appeared stuck.  Lungs not getting better.

Once they had her sedated and intubated on Wed. night they pretty much kicked me out and sent me home to be with boys as there was nothing I could do at hospital.  So I went home on Wed. night.  The boys were vey happy to see me, they are asking when mom is coming home.  I sat them down and told them that mom has caught a cold and will need to be in the hospital for a while longer to make sure she doesn't get sick right off when she comes home.  They are very resilient and strong - like their mother.

On Thursday they did another CT scan and a bronchial scope procedure with a camera and water to get some fluid from deep in her lungs to biopsy.  Everything came back negative.  We seem to have them all stumped on this.  They are thinking more and more that she does not have an infection at this point.  They also need more information.  So on Friday they performed a lung biopsy (surgical procedure where they actually go in and take out some small pieces of each lung to biopsy).  This was not what they wanted to do as it can have its own complications (many which you don't really want to know) but they have to try and find out how to treat her before she starts to get worse and they run out of options.

Lung biopsy went fine and she is continuing to rest under sedation in her room.  Spoke with one of the doctors yesterday and he said biopy showed no infection but lung damage.  The only diagnosis they seem to be able to pin on this is Idiopathic something, something: which is medical terminology for "we don't really know, but here is our best guess treatment".  Result is that they have started her on a high dose of steroids (brings other possible problems) in an effort to help try and clear up lungs.  They do know that because of the damage they see, that this will take quite some time to recover from.  Today is Sunday, she has been in ICU for 15 days, the hospital for 25.  We are really hoping for these steroids to kick in and relieve some of the lung issues.  They are hoping to try and get her off the vent either today or tomorrow.

The boys are in Bethel with all their cousins playing in the pond and mountain biking.  The best thing for them right know - distraction!  Hope we can give some good news in the next couple of day.
Troy