Possible New Infection Shows on X-Ray

Here is Brianna so full of life and goofing around with one of her friends. I've shown many pictures of her to the nurses, so she becomes a real person under all the sedation, tubes and beeping.

We had our patient care meeting on Thursday and it went well. Dr. Cornfield, who is in charge of the PICU and is also a pulmonologist, continues to follow Brianna's case whether he's the attending physician on duty or not. We are so grateful to him for all his expertise. But in the meeting he said that she's doing well considering all that she has going on. But he said there were some storm clouds on the horizon, namely her x-ray from that morning.

The doctors said it looked worse than the one taken on Tuesday. On Sunday, it still wasn't as clear as it was, but it hasn't gotten worse. We're in the same holding pattern and it scares the heck out of me. This is how her whole lung problem began before she had to go to the ICU.

Basically, the x-ray shows an area in the middle of her left lung (the good lung) that is like a focused cloudy area. Lung x-rays should be black where there is air. If there is white, that means either collapse or inflammation from an infection. When she first got to the PICU some four weeks ago, her lung area looked more cloudy all over the lungs not just in one specific part. They called it more of a diffuse pattern, rather than a focal one. On the recent x-ray, they seem to think it may be some type of antibiotic resistent bacteria. So they've switched her antibiotics in hopes it may clear up.

The other theory about her recent x-ray is that some of the white-ish areas are actually collapse. The MAP was turned back up to 20 on Friday, after having been lowered to 15 on Tuesday. Brianna is off the paralytic, and they doctors decided to go up on the sedation, because a MAP of 20 can be uncomfortable and not natural. She did well on the higher settings and in fact her oxgenation was doing really well. Her oxgen saturation jumped up to 98 and they had even turned down both the amount of oxygen they were giving to 55 percent and the amount of nitric oxide to 1 percent. Even though her x-ray was not looking great, clinically she was doing really well.

Her x-ray yesterday didn't look worse, which is a good thing - at least that is what they tell me. Part of her lung may have experienced some collapse because one of the areas in question on the x-ray that was white is now black. However, it wasn't part of the central focal point area. So we continue to wait. My concern is at what point do we wait long enough, and yet not too long before they decide to do a bronchoscopy. They say we're not there yet. Plus, doing a bronchoscopy has its risks.

If you remember, we got down to 15. It may have been too low to continue to keep her lungs expanded. Add the fact that she has a fistula, or hole in her right lung, and the pressure may have even been lower than that. When the pressure gets to 16 or 18 on the mean airway pressure (MAP), a patient is usually switched to a conventional ventilator. The plan remains the same, at least for now. She will be switched to a conventional today.

I'm waiting for the doctors to speak to me after rounds. That's when they all get together and discuss Brianna's current condition and what needs to be done to get her well. Every morning of everyday, we meet with the doctors in the mid-morning to go over what will be done and how she's doing.

Sorry it's been a while, but much has been happening. The emotional roller coaster continues with her good days and not so good ones. Thank you each and everyone of you for your cards, prayers and well wishes. When Brianna is well, I'd love to throw a huge party to thank all of you who keep us in your daily thoughts and prayers and for all who have helped our family.

God bless....Iva