March 30, 2010

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010 9:53 AM, CDT

Say an extra prayer for us if you can. Liam continues to drop in his o2 sats. The night nurse noticed (what I noticed and mentioned yesterday to the day nurse) that every time his o2 drops, he's got twitchy/jerky movements going on and early this morning, they apparently were very rhythmic making the nurse suspect he was having a seizure. So, they did an EEG this morning and have started him on seizure medication. We should have the results of the EEG back this afternoon or evening. The doctor came in and talked to me when I first got here (I'm in the waiting room right now while the doctors are doing bedside rounds) and told me all this and said they're postponing taking him off the vent, for now.

Oh, and I almost forgot - they're doing a spinal tap on Liam today to make sure he doesn't have meningitis, which can cause seizures

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010 9:31 PM, CDT

We won't be getting any results tonight. It's a little frustrating about not having results of the lumbar puncture (spinal tap) back - but, I guess, like they said, it won't change anything because they're already treating him with strong antibiotics. The EEG is more understandable because we were told it might be this evening or even tomorrow because there's only one Pediatric Neurologist in Springfield - and he has office hours, so he can't read tests (i.e. EEG) until after those hours unless it's an emergency - and, there again, they're already treating him with seizure medications (phenobarbital and Ativan (lorezepam)), so there's no real rush for the results today.

Liam had a really unsettled kind of day, again. He was jumping from one extreme to another with his o2 sats, which resulted in him having his ventilator turned up twice. When I left, he was also on 40% oxygen and the vent settings were up to 30 (# of breaths the machine is taking for him) and 25 (pressure) - a big set back for him.