❤️ 1/11 3:40 pm

Ethan had lots of people come in today. Renal, pulmonary, cardiology, wound care, critical care, infectious disease, he had an Echo and EKG.

The morning came and went without rounds.  “When is Ethan’s turn?” I asked the nurse.  

Around 12:30, they came around. We are going to slowly wean the vent settings and sedation. No urine challenge because he is getting his biopsy done on Friday to look for rejection. The reason for this is because they want all the fluid to stay off so the conditions are ideal and nothing will jeopardize his biopsy.  They will continue to run the machine a little positive so that Ethan’s body has to clear some of the urine himself.

Because Ethan is getting a biopsy on Friday, this means he needs a covid test. I strongly pushed for the covid test before weaning the sedation. That way he doesn’t need to suffer through it. 

They wanted to just do small changes to make sure his lungs can handle what we are doing.  Ok by me. No need to go backwards.

So the new Janice arrived. She is very needy. All the lines were run. While Ethan was off of Janice, his temperature went up slightly. Janice tends to cool him down. I took everything except his blanket off of him. His one blanket I turned into a loin cloth because he is a gentleman and would never be indecent. His temperature rise earned him more blood, urine and respiratory cultures even though he is on robust antibiotics. The team seriously takes no chances. 

Ethan’s deep tissue injury is not getting worse nor better. I consider this a win. We keep turning him to try and avoid him sitting on his butt.

Ethan’s cardiologist came in and was asking me questions about Ethan’s last few weeks. Mom’s are better than medical records it seems. Luckily I was able to answer all the questions and felt absolutely confident about my answers.

I then posed my own question to him.

“I was wondering if there will be a repeat abdominal ultrasound to look for the missing kidney.” I asked.

Blank stare. A few moments went by. Still a blank stare.

“I can tell by your ......masked face.....that you have NO idea what I am talking about.” I said and laughed.

“Uh...yeah...I am going to need more information.” 

We laughed and I told him that his kidney wasn’t found on ultrasound and there was a question if it was missing, or lost in the fluid. 

“He just has to be different doesn’t he?” Said his doctor.

Indeed.

I only did 5 flights of stairs today. Not a lot, but enough to show my lower half who’s boss. (Shhhhhh! Don’t tel my lower half, but I think it is boss because I am sore.)