Justice

I'm not going to rehash the past week in detail. Here's the abbreviated version.

Justice started getting congested last Sunday. Monday he started coughing. Tuesday and Wednesday he had a fever. Thursday he was kind of miserable. Friday he slept ALL DAY. I took him to the pediatrician. His oxygen saturation was good but his lungs sounded awful. She had him admitted to the hospital as a precaution. By 130 Saturday morning he was being transferred from the regular pediatrics ward to the PICU because his sats were low. Placed on high flow nasal cannula at a rate of 9 liters and climbing. By 1130 Saturday the decision was made to intubate him. He was stable for a little bit but at 530 the decision was made to transfer him to The Children's Hospital in Denver in case he needed ECMO (heart/lung bypass). We had an uneventful ambulance ride up here, arriving at 930 and he was up and down but mostly stable for the next 19 hours. At 430 today, I got back from finally eating a meal and there was about 15 people in and around his room. He was having trouble keeping his sats up and the doctors had decided it was time to put him on ECMO. He's doing great now because the machine is doing all the work his heart and lungs normally would. This allows his lungs times to heal and get rid of the infection without having to work. He most likely has H1N1. He will probably be on ECMO for a week and we're told will most likely be in the hospital for about 2 weeks after he comes off ECMO. So we're looking at Christmas in the hospital (something we avoided by one day last year!). Prayers are coveted. There are complications that can still occur from being on ECMO but I'm not focusing on that.
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