So, it's been forever since I've posted any updates on Abby. It's been pretty crazy around here, but seems to be settling down. A little recap here: Abby came home from the UMC NBICU on Saturday, May 3rd on oxygen support. She was using between 1/2 and 1/4 liter of pressure. She was doing well until she picked up Joshua's cold. On Wednesday, May 14th she was admitted to Primary Children's Medical Center with an upper respiratory tract infection called Human Metapneumovirus. PCMC is right next door to UMC, so it was back down to Salt Lake we went. I had taken her into the pediatrician that afternoon and after listening to her and doing an xray it was decided that she needed to be admitted. It's 35 miles away and they didn't want to risk her quickly deteriorating while in the car with me stuck in traffic, so we took the ambulance down.
While there she was taken to the PICU (pediatric ICU) for a week. She was put back on the high flow machine at 8 liters and 80% oxygen. This was incredibly high, but she seemed stable so they didn't want to cause more damage to her lungs by reintubating her or putting her on cpap. She was then taken back to the infant unit for another week as she slowly reduced her oxygen needs. She came home on Friday, May 30th at .4 Liters of flow. While in the hospital she was given multiple i.v.s, poked by so many needles to draw blood, they tried twice to no avail to put in a catheter to run a urine culture. It was really rough seeing her put through all of this. She definitely was unhappy with all of these tests. Oh, and the suctioning! They would actually put a vacuum tube down her nose several inches to do what is called deep suction. This was done repeatedly, especially for the first several days. No wonder she had trouble breathing. In addition to her congested lungs this had to have swollen her nasal passages. I felt so sorry for her. We don't want this to happen again if we can avoid it. Therefore, she's pretty much housebound for the next year.
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