Chest Films

This morning Aaron had another chest film to check on his lungs before rounds. His film this morning didn't show any change from yesterday. During rounds they decided to turn off his flolan completely and to run several more labs. (The nurse let me officially turn it off and gave me the sticker from the IV pump, its a big thing to turn that off!) His CRT this morning before labs was 37, after tomorrows labs I'm sure his CRT will fall significantly so we are anticipating another transfusion tonight and tomorrow. He was put back on full feeds as well. One of the cultures came back positive but showed contamination so it has to be redone. Each one of those cultures requires 5mls of blood, when he gets transfused he gets between 20 and 30 mls so one culture is a significant amount of blood.

Just before rounds Aaron became agitated. We tried to console him but he was having none of it. His saturations dropped into the 50's again and was turned up to 100% on his oxygen. His sats did not improve. The Attending came in and ordered another chest film stat. The film was back just as rounds started. We all went to look at the film and compare it to this morning's. This morning's film showed the entire right upper lobe completely black (collapsed). A larege section of the lower lobe was also black. The film that was run before rounds showed the same with the right side but a smaller section on the left. The doctor turned to me and said, well it looks a little bit better. Pneumonia is going to take quite some time to recover from and if he's not worse today its a good thing and this is even slightly better. This gives us hope.