jockamo Fee Nanay.

I promise that’s not gibberish. Well, ok it kind of is, but it actually means something.

You’ve probably heard at least one rendition of the “Iko Iko” song. This is a line from that song, which was traditionally a battle cry between Indian warriors in the Southeast part of the United States a million years ago. Or somewhere in that time frame. Anyways – jockamo fee nanay means “We Have Come to Do Battle”.

Tonite more so than it has been in the past – this is my resolution.

We have come to do battle. We have come to win. You better run, nasty little klebsiella bugs in my baby’s body – we comin’ fo ya!!!

Tonite my baby is laying calmly in her bed, her position determined for her by special pillows and props placed strategically by the nurses to ensure the best circulation. There is the constant beep of her heartrate, the constant “chug-chug-chug-chuggggg” of the 9 pumps running meds and fluids into her, the “puf-pufff…puf-puffff” of the ventilator machine taking breaths for Kendall. The room is dark except for the eerie green glow from all the pumps and monitors. Tonight there is no “Little Mermaid” movie on an endless loop. Tonight I am not frantically searching for the dropped nee-nee (binkie) for the 83rd time – because there is no room in her mouth for the nee-nee.It is just Kendall and her machines vs the bugs invading her body tonite.

Her doctors tell me that she won’t have much of a memory of this time – no PTSD regarding all the interventions she has endured the past couple days. I think that is a good thing, and while i’m not entirely sure I buy it, i’ll hold on to it for tonight at least.

In the morning we will see how her lungs are looking. She is intubated tonight mostly because she developed ARDS – a sucky but not entirely unexpected response to the sepsis and fluid resuscitation she needed because of that. Her lungs are almost entirely filled with white cloudy-looking fluid. Also concerning is that she appears to have a pocket of fluid trapped in her pleural space which may require a chest tube to drain. I have not personally experienced a chest tube, but I hear they are among the most unpleasant experiences ever. She is still extremely fluid overloaded – her abdomen being the worst (to me at least). She is not draining  this fluid out of her tubes, nor is it being absorbed into her bloodstream where it can be peed off easily (or at least, more easier).
There’s a lot that has gone “wrong” with Kendall to make her this sick – but the bottom line is that it is not all entirely unexpected. I cannot express to you enough how amazing the team we have here in PICU has been. I know some of you think I should have my honorary nursing degree – but this stuff – all SERIOUSLY above my head. Imagine trying to make dinner by using two tiny sewing needles as your hands. That is about what this team is doing – trying to fix some very big problems by finely tuning to the “n-th degree” things that are so miniscule that most docs in a non PICU situation would probably never bat an eye at. I am sure I’m leaving out so much info that so many of you are wanting – sorry. I’m exhausted. I added it up this morning and I’ve gotten almost 8 total hours of sleep since Saturday night. I don’t want to start going off about Kelly Ripa or Katy Perry or any celebs right now!

Tonight I am watching three numbers on the monitors that I would covet your prayers for:

1. Her temperature. She has had high fevers (103 range) all day. On the one hand, this indicates that her body is doing a bang-up job actually mounting an immune response and then trying to FIGHT this infection. On the other hand – fevers this high are uncomfortable. We want her to have relief, and I’d like to see her body start winning a few battles here – by lowering that fever a little bit.

Her CVP – central venous pressures. They have come down from the 30’s to the 20s and now to the 15 range. Ideally we’d like them to be around 7. I’m not sure i fully understand the thought process behind that being an issue, but I guess it can’t hurt to try.

And lastly her blood pressure. She’s still on the pressers so it’s going to be a little on the high side. But I’d love to see any or all of these numbers trending in the right direction when I wake up.

Please also pray that she stays sedated. She’s a kiddo whose body likes to chew through sedation meds like they are candy – so we cannot keep her on a sedation drop of versed like would normally happen. We have her on one continuous med to control her sedation needs, and two others that are dosed every three hours. In between those doses she can get PRN doses for breakthrough “wakeups”. I will say this – our first “wakeup” today was a sight I would like to never ever ever witness again. Kendall was trying to choke/gag/cough up the tube – but because it is anchored below her vocal chords, it is not able to come out that easily – so she was choking harder, face turning beet red – trying to scream but no sound coming out – it was horrifying. I’m sure it was “normal” but not for this momma. Thankfully there were three nurses in here within a few seconds of this happening and they were able to re-sedate her and calm her down. She has woken up a few times since then also, but nothing as horrid as that first one.
Anyways – I know this is scattered. sorry. Hopefully I at least can get this one to publish in the right month!!
a huge-normous thank you to everyone who donated to Kendall’s paypal. I definitely have enough to get to the competition and back this weekend, and get food for another week or so here (hoping we don’t need THAT long though!) You all are such an amazing blessing to me and my family~

Thank you for the prayers, for the texts, messages, emails. Thank you for everything.

Hopefully I will update more in the morning.

Have a great night friends – hug your babies tonight.

 

love,

terra~