BACK IN THE HOSPITAL?

Yikes, what a night. Right now I am sitting with Max waiting to hear back from the doctor....and the waiting is driving me nuts.

Yesterday his heart rate was much higher than usual...even when he was sleeping. At first I thought it was due to his blood draw yesterday but it continued throughout the afternoon and evening. And when the night nurse came on, she was quite concerned as well but we decided to watch it. Sure enough it continued and slightly worsened as the night went on. Additionally his respiratory rate increased and he was running a slight fever. So I spent a good chunk of the middle of the night talking with the various doctors involved and trying to decide what is going on with lil' Max and what the plan of action should be. We are in a bit of a confusing situation right now, since our local pediatrician doesn't know Max very well yet so we have to rely on Children's physicians still. At first the doctor (Children's pulmonologist) thought we should head down to Seattle but then thought we could hold off until the morning and see our local doctor first thing (which is what we are waiting to do right now) and then we will probably end up in the local hospital or down to Children's later today. We are in the beginning of a morphine wean so the doctor thought we might try going back up on that first and then see if there is much of a change. No one was very excited to have him in the E.R. last night with all the germs and the doctors there would have probably been freaked out with all of Max's medical conditions anyway. On a side note, it brought at least a little humor when I paged my local doctor last night and got a return phone call from a nurse who wasn't familiar with Maxwell. She started asking the basic questions...how old, is he relatively healthy, on any meds, etc. Boy did she get an earful when I had to list everything from start to finish. It was such a reminder for me that opps, not all kids have such an assortment of medical issues!

Max does seem to be a little more "normal" this morning...at least he finally woke up. He was VERY lethargic through the night...never waking even once for nearly 12 hours. That at least provides a little encouragement and his HR is slightly lower than yesterday...but still much higher than it is supposed to be.

I will keep you posted...and most importantly, keep sweet Max in your prayers. Your prayers have worked wonders in the past, let's do that again!