A Little Saturday Night Excitement

JW welcomed the night shift with a bang. Night nurse was drawing a blood gas. He was satting 86. RT walked in, put on a gown and mask and when he turned to the bed, JW was at 50. He more than likely threw a mucus plug and it's just miraculous that the RT was already here and able to suction him immediately. The docs were all called in and his sats started coming back up slowly. Did another chest xray and discovered his left lung looks better, right lung looks worse, but overall the xray was better than the previous (and all of his xrays have looked better than when we were here in December). Now that he's off the high frequency vent it's not surprising that he threw a mucus plug. The regular vent is allowing all the secretions to loosen up. The hope is that he will be stable enough for a bronchoscopy around noon tomorrow and really allow the pulmonologist to suction him and also see how inflamed his lungs are.