Lung Biopsy

James went for his lung biopsy today around 1pm. So far it appears all went well from this procedure. They were able to do the procedure thorascopically, which means they did not have to cut his entire side open, but instead made a two inch incision on the left side and used a tube. They had hoped they would not need to leave a chest drain tube in since they are painful, but unfortunately it was necessary in order to prevent an air leakage and the lung from collapsing. Tomorrow they will do an x-ray (they do daily around 6am) and see how things are looking. If the lung is good and expanded they will likely remove the tube since he was not getting much drainage from it, nor was their air coming from it. Although he was not complaining, if we asked him if he hurt he would say yes and his blood pressure was high indicating he was stress ... likely from the pain. They have given him extra morphine for the night to help him through the pain, so hopefully he sleeps well. He continues to have fevers but they are unable to give him anything for it, except to pack him in ice. Due to the current situation of his liver (the levels were higher again today) he cannot have tylenol. He cannot have ibprophen because it thins the blood and he is trying to heal right now. Hopefully we don't run into the same fever problems we did after his last procedure.

As we expect James needed to have a blood transfusion last night. His levels dropped to the point where they would normally need to do a transfusion, on top of that the surgeon wanted his levels higher before he went to O.R.

Yesterday afternoon someone from the Respiratory Team came to us to find out if we would consent to them doing a BAL (also called a bronscoscopy) today. This is basically an extremely small lavage. Their reason for requesting this was to gather more fluid from his lungs for further testing. Once removed from the lungs the macrophages last about 2 weeks, so they quickly get old and any tests that they want to do should be done as soon as possible. Also the fluid they got from the last WLL had traces of fungi in it, which means that the testing could give false results. They felt that he was strong enough for this and it would work fine to do this with the biopsy. Realizing we need these in order to continue the research we consented to this procedure. So today he also had a BAL where they inserted 70ml into his lungs (in comparison to the 1-2L for the WLL's) and removed it again. He did begin to deSAT so they decide that was enough for the time being and should suffice for the current research plan.

So now we sit and wait for the results of all the various tests that have been done over the last couple days.

Last night Rob picked up the girls and brought them to our new home. They were extremely excited about this. We have not made any firm decisions on what we will do, but will likely keep them with us for the next week and see how it goes. We'll be looking into the school provided here to see how it functions. We hope to start them in the school on Monday, even if they're not learning what they should be, at least it will keep them busy and give us some free time without them. The home also has various activities at times that can keep them busy and allow us a breather. As well the hospital provides a "babysitting" service where you can drop your kids of for a couple hours and volunteers watch them, do crafts etc with them. We'll give this a try and see how we all survive. The biggest challenge is for Rob and I to get sleep somewhere inbetween all this.

Rob also picked up my computer for me yesterday ... yahh!!! So among other things, I will now be able to upload pictures ... if I can get this wireless connection to cooperate with me ... soon anyways.