Zoe in ICU

Zoe Has a Cold

On Tuesday, we noticed that Zoe was coming down with a cold. Just a simple, stupid cold started all this. She had a runny nose and slight fever. She had a pretty good night- just woke up once with a fever and needed to be cleared out from all the mucus. She had a good day Wednesday and we expected her to possibly go to school on Thursday.

Emergency Room Visit

At 4am on Thursday, Gavin and I both woke up because we heard Zoe breathing kind of funny. We figured she was clogged from mucus or had turned herself face down. Gavin went to check on her. I heard him calling her name repeatedly which meant she was having a seizure. Zoe was having a tonic clonic seizure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonic%E2%80%93clonic_seizure )which means her whole body was shaking and she was not conscious. Because we were not sure how long she had been seizing, we gave her the emergency seizure medication and started getting dressed to take her to the hospital. Zoe continued seizing all the way there and was still seizing when I dropped Zoe and Gavin at the emergency entrance. The seizure lasted a total of 30 minutes that we know for sure plus however long she was seizing before we found her.

Zoe was actually doing better after the seizure and we planned to take her home. However, while waiting for medication and discharge papers, Zoe began seizing again. This seizure lasted 45 minutes despite five doses of emergency seizure medications. The doctor said Zoe had started to go into status epilepticus which is serious (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_epilepticus ).

After Zoe finally stopped seizing, she was doing ok but they wanted to keep a close eye on her and planned to admit her to the regular floor. While waiting for the transport person, Zoe began signing that her chest hurt and was working really hard to breathe. They took an xray and while waiting for results, started oxygen and Ventolin treatments.

The doctor called us over to show us the xray results (never a good sign) and showed us that at 5am Thursday morning, Zoe's lungs looked like they always look- just a little white shadow in the left lower lobe. By 7pm, her lungs were covered in white shadows which meant there was mucus/fluid in both of her lungs. They were concerned that her lungs changed so quickly and thought it might be that she aspirated mucus during her 45 minute seizure. The medications they gave her made it harder for her to protect her airway so she may have sucked in mucus as a result.

Intensive Care Unit

As it stands, Zoe needed to be put on a breathing machine since she was having such a hard time breathing and her oxygen levels were dropping. She is on a less invasive breathing machine called bi-pap and they are watching her closely to see if they will need to be more invasive and fully intubate her. My understanding is that with bi-pap, Zoe is still initiating breathing on her own and the machine is blowing air to make her lungs expand more as she breathes. With full intubation, the machine will be breathing for Zoe.

Current Issues

Right now Zoe has three big issues they are figuring out:

1- Keeping a close eye to see if her lungs are improving. If not, they will intubate her and start washing her lungs out with saline to clear the mucus out. They are giving her some time to see if she can clear her lungs herself. So far we have seen slight improvement on her xray and they have been able to decrease the pressure and oxygen levels on the breathing machine.

2- Zoe stopped peeing on her own and they aren't sure why. So they are giving her medications to make her pee. They don't want extra fluid sitting in her body since it is not good for her lungs. And obviously, not peeing is not a good thing.

3- Zoe is very difficult to get an IV into. They have already gone through several IVs and are constantly poking her for bloodwork. So they are talking about inserting a central line (http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=14394 ) but they are some risks with that so they are waiting for some culture results to estimate how long she will need IV antibiotics for. If it is going to be several weeks, then they will have to insert a central line.

Zoe is Miserable

Right now, Zoe is pretty miserable. The machine is obviously uncomfortable, she is being poked every few hours and suctioned every couple of minutes. They are deep suctioning her through her mouth and Zoe hates anything in her mouth. Today they are giving her a medication to help her sleep which is a good thing. She needs to rest so her body can stay strong but she feels so miserable she just lies awake irritated.

We are going to get a hotel room a block from the hospital so that I can spend more time with Zoe. Right now it is difficult because Ailsa is not allowed in the ICU. They are worried about her being exposed to something and getting sick too. So we plan to have people at the hotel with Ailsa so I can run over to see Zoe and then run back to nurse Ailsa and get rest when I need to. Ailsa has been doing a great job with all of this but we could see how irritated she was after spending two days with various strangers holding her and not on any sort of routine. So we plan to have her spend time with a regular group of people we trust and have more of a routine during the day so she can sleep well at night. Which means we can get a little more sleep too.

We will try to post updates when we get a chance but just wanted to let people know how Zoe was doing.

We appreciate everyone keeping us in your thoughts.