All Are Precious In His Sight

We've had a few "issues" (minor) this afternoon that started around 2PM.  I'm not sure if Chrissie is allergic to morphine (thus making her itch) or if it's something entirely different that's agitating Chrissie.  It began as we were changing her diaper (Chrissie now has poopy diapers since her intestines are being tube fed).  Chrissie gets embarassed that she's pooping in a diaper, so I know that when it comes time for a diaper change that Chrissie will cry a little out of sheer embarassment since she's such a big girl yet she's wearing a diaper.  (She still has her bladder catheter, so no tee-tee diapers.)  After the diaper change, Chrissie just got more and more agitated, which was coming out as tears and grimacing and high blood pressure.  We couldn't figure out what was causing her such frustration.  We gave Chrissie a dosage of Adavan (sp?) to help relieve some of her agitation, but it did nothing.  Next, we gave an extra bolus of morphine (like an extra "shot" of it through her normal IV drip), but that didn't do anything to help her.  So then we gave a dosage of Chloryll, which usually helps tremendously, but it didn't do anything either.  (Someone else mentioned Versed, which Chrissie has a constant drip being administered.)  After standing by Chrissie's side for an hour and half of her being frustrated and upset and crying and agitated, I decided to paint her toenails since Chrissie LOVES to have her toenails painted.  That didn't do any good (although her nails look cute!), so I knew Chrissie was really perturbed or hurting. 

The hardest thing is trying to determine the source of agitation...is it pain, itching, uncomfortable position, gagging/drowning feeling of being intubated, or a whole host of other possibilities.  Chrissie can't talk while intubated, and the only movement she has right now is slight control over her left arm/hand and her eyebrows/lips.  (Will write more about that later.)  I noticed Chrissie kept taking her left arm and moving it toward her leg, then it appeared as if she was scratching her leg, but she doesn't really have very good control of her fingers, so she's always "grasping" and fidgeting, which just confuses us to figure out if she's scratching because she's itching or if she's just moving in frustration.  I was asking Chrissie to answer "yes" by moving her eyebrows up and down for me, but I don't think this worked b/c I asked her questions that she should have said "no" to (which would mean she would hold her eyebrows still instead of scrunching them up and down), yet Chrissie still answered yes to the no questions.  For example, "Chrissie, do you like chocolate?"  Chrissie wiggles eyebrows up and down.  Then I ask, "Chrissie, does your body itch?"  Chrissie answers yes with her wiggly eyebrows.  Then I ask, "Chrissie, do you like boo-boos (shots/IV's)?"  Chrissie answers yes.  So, that throws out that theory of yes, Chrissie is itching.  UGH!  This is so hard to figure out!

Chrissie is resting well now though.  It took 2.5 hours to get her to settle down, which was HARD.  I stood by her bed and rubbed her and talked to her, encouraging her and trying so hard to figure out what was going on, but I never got it figured out.  We finally chose to reposition her to see if that would help, and within about 10 minute of repositioning her, Chrissie calmed down and went back to sleep.  Maybe it was just a princess and the pea meltdown. :-)

I asked about her ventilator and lungs and if anyone can give me a time frame on all of that, but no one can even guess if it will be days, weeks or months of being on this ventilator.  It is a transitional ventilator, and Chrissie is still very dependent upon it.  There are hundreds of variances in the settings that directly affect Chrissie's blood gasses, oxygen saturation, Co2 levels, etc., and the machine can be set at a variety of levels that deteremine Chrissie's breathing rate, mean pressure, amount of air being puffed in and so much more.  I have no clue.  I asked the respiratory therapist today, but he was unable to make any guesses.  I just know that Chrissie is a long way from moving to even a "normal" ventilator, so lots of prayers still needed for healing of Chrissie's lungs.  God knows what needs to occur in there, so He hears your prayers and petitions and knows exactly what needs to occur to heal those lungs, which were Handcrafted by our Maker.

Keep praying for no infection.  Chrissie has had low fevers on and off today.  So far nothing is growing on the cultures, so that's good.  She still has MRSA (staph), but no one seems to be all that concerned about it.  Chrissie's on antibiotics that would treat staph, but not real sure what's up with that.  (Dr. Porisch...I need you!)  Dr. P always keeps me informed on everything, so I'm really missing being such a PPP (Porisch's Pampered Parent).

Gotta go, Chrissie's crying and moving again...be back later...