Ty is stable in the ICU – it looks as though they got to his infection before sepsis set in. It’s possible nothing will grow on his cultures, and they’ll never be able to identify his infection. The thought is that one of the mucositis sites in his GI tract is infected. At any rate, since they started him on some bigwig antibiotics, he hasn’t had a fever.
So now the trick is to get his blood pressure back up. He remains dependent on dopamine, unfortunately. After each attempt to reduce the dopamine, Tyler’s blood pressure has dropped again and only comes back up when the dopamine is increased. He cannot return to his floor until he’s had a solid BP on his own for 12 consecutive hours. The initial estimate of 24 hours has now been extended to at least a few days. And given how much Tyler hates this place, that’s bad news indeed.
Parents are not allowed to sleep in the PICU so that we don’t potentially get in the way during a crisis, and they supply very tiny, uncomfortable chairs to make sure no one could even possibly be tempted. Ron went home tonight, then we will swap and I will go home to sleep in the morning. I’m quite sure I will need a chiropractor. Ron will also bring our luggage with him so we can pack up Tyler’s things on the 8th floor – they can’t hold his room while he remains here.
That’s it for now. We sure can use prayers for Tyler’s blood pressure to stabilize. As I was writing this, it dropped very low again, even on the last increased dose. So the levels have been raised again. Each increase prolongs his time here.