Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Train is taking a detour

It's not a complete derailment, but definitely a different route than I'd planned this week.

My 19yo son who has Cystic Fibrosis, started coughing up blood when he got up yesterday afternoon. We've dealt with this before, so we just watched it for a bit and when it slowed down almost completely, decided we didn't need to go in. Then around 9pm, he started coughing again and it was way more than we'd ever experienced before, so it was off to the local ER. The doctor there did an xray, blood tests, plus consulted with the on-call pulmonologist at the Children's Hospital in Denver/Aurora. They weren't comfortable with just sending him home, so they told the ER doc to send us to the ER at Children's to be admitted. With a quick swing by the house to pick up some stuff, we were on our way around 2am. It's about an hour drive, much quicker in the middle of the night! :-P

When we got to this ER, they didn't realize that he was supposed to just be admitted right away, so we waited for a short time down there and they took another xray. We finally got admitted around 5am. Since then, they've done a bronchoscopy under general anesthesia, a CT/angiogram with contrast, and he's currently under general anesthesia again in Interventional Radiology, where they are going through his femoral artery up to the lungs to close off the bronchial arteries. Those are the ones that can be big and tend to get abraded and bleed with CF, especially with the extra infection Kendall has dealt with for years. And worst case scenario, those bleeds can cause a person to drown if the lung fills up. So it's a little scary when this happens! I'm running on about 3 hours of sleep, so I may not make a lot of sense.

The really hard thing is that he and his sister were supposed to fly to Baltimore this weekend for an anime convention. So he's pretty disappointed about that. He was really hoping that they could fix him and he'd be on his way, but that just isn't gonna happen. :-( And last year two days before this same convention is when he was in a car accident and totaled my van. He said he's not making plans to go next year!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

As you know, I am keeping you in my most heartfelt prayers!!
If there is ANYTHING that you need or ANYTHING that I can do for you, please, please give me a call!!

Sending **HUGS**
Lynda

Jen, a priorfatgirl said...

sounds like a stressful day - I will definetly keep you & your family in my thoughts & prayers!

F. McButter Pants said...

Bless his heart, sounds like he still has a sense of humor though. Sometimes if you don't laugh, you'll cry. Laughing is always better!

I too am sending you hugs!

Diana said...

Poor kid! I'll keep y'all in my thoughts!

Ro said...

I am praying for your son....I really am. Sending my postive vibes your way as always.

Shelley said...

Your poor son! I like his humor though, NOT planning on going to the convention next year! Hope he improves quickly!

InWeighOverMyHead said...

My goodness! I hope he gets better soon! your family is in my prayers!

- Lisa
www.losewithlisa.blogspot.com

Hanlie said...

Oh dear, I'm thinking of you all!

HappySkinnyGirl said...

I'm sending hugs and prayers to you and your family. Hope he gets better soon!

Unknown said...

Oh my, how scary! You all are in my prayers.