Murphy's Law strikes

We're back. Back in the P-D-U... (think Kiss). Pediatric Unit... yes, we're at the hospital.

Just as I'm saying how great everything is going, we hit a little bump. Not 20 minutes after I came home with the dogs, Amelia got fussy. She'd been doing great, playing on her stomach satting great while Xina folded laundry, but hadn't had time to meet the puppies yet. Then all of a sudden, her sats dropped, she turned purple and started freaking out. She didn't have any pluggage in her nose and we turned her flow to 3Lpms and kept banging away at her back. She eventually started breathing again, but we couldn't get her flow down below 2LPMs so after about 30 minutes, we gathered her things and headed to the ER in Katy. After 4 chest X rays (which the ER doctor said looked a lot worse than the last Xray she had before we left), 3 blood draws, and 5 attempts at placing an IV (#5 being successful), they transferred us to the Med Center. During her ER stay, we were able to get her back down to 1.25Lpms and she was doing much better.

Xina rode in the ambulance (her second ambulance ride in the last year from Katy to the med center) with her while I went home to take care of the dogs, gather some clothes and get her meds. I eventually got to the hospital around 3:30am, where AE was bouncing between 2Lpm and 1.5 Lpms and they were still wondering what was up. She did fine during the night and the morning, and is back down on a consistent 1.5Lpms now. We'll go home this afternoon if she continues her or better.

The assumption is that her airway got clogged by mucous/secretions from her lungs and that she wasn't strong enough to cough it out. The Xrays they took at the ER were badly done, so they took another one here and it was as clear as a tinkerbell... she doesn't sound wet, and her breath isn't a wheeze. A plug is the only seemingly possible thing. The problem is, there's really nothing that can be done to stop it from happening as long as her BPD continues. You hope she gets big and strong enough to cough it out right away, or you just help her pass it. It's unpredictable and pretty hard to prevent.

So, now we know what to look for and what to do if it happens again. There was one thing good that came of it. Xina actually slept for 3hrs all in one spell, knowing that nurses were around to watch over AE. We have been institutionalized.