Tyler’s condition worsened during the night. Because his kidneys weren’t doing so well yesterday, they increased his fluid to try to help them out. Unfortunately, this then allowed more fluid into his lungs, so now his lungs are in trouble. The primary issue with his lungs is that his new immune cells rushed there to attack the infection and are now attacking his healthy cells too. They are causing massive inflammation. His counts are recovering at a really fast rate now, so now he’s at greater risk for these kinds of symptoms. Because of this, the doctors say he’ll get worse before he gets better.
Tyler’s breathing was at 90 breaths a minute last night, and he simply couldn’t keep his oxygen levels up. He is now dependent on BiPAP for breathing. The doctors think he will likely be on a ventilator within 72 hours. The nephrologists are thinking he will need kidney support as well – not dialysis, but something a little more gentle that runs 24/7 called CRRT. The dangers in intubating Tyler and adding an access line for the CRRT are infection-related. These were two things his oncology docs didn’t want to see happen. So we’re no longer moving in the right direction, but no one is telling us to give up hope yet. They’ve seen kids come back from set-backs like this, and Tyler is clearly fighting hard. They are thinking we’ll be in the ICU until early March at this point.