Parker Update - Day 9

The echocardiogram that Parker had done yesterday showed no changes from the previous echocardiogram done in August. This means his PH has not gotten worse--that is good news. The doctors said this morning that they can hear a very small amount of air moving in Parker's left lung (the lung with the localized pneumonia, which has not been moving ANY air for the past several days!)--this is also good news. They would like to discontinue the antibiotics since they are pretty confident that the bacteria is gone. There's just a bunch of "junk" in his lungs now that needs to be broken up and coughed up. To help with this, they started Parker on an inhaled medication once a day, in addition to the "shaky vest" which he still has to do three times a day. The doctors also plan to start weaning Parker's oxygen. He cannot come home until his oxygen need is less than 5 liters for both day and night. Currently he is requiring at least 9 liters during the day and quite a bit more than that at night, so we still have a ways to go. He has also lost 3 pounds since he was admitted! I was shocked when they told me that. But, he really hasn't eaten much because he hasn't had much of an appetite. We hope that his appetite will improve as he begins to feel better.

Parker had a good day. I felt like he had a little more energy and didn't tire quite as easily. I'm not sure if it is because Parker is starting to feel better or because the medication problem we mentioned yesterday is now fixed (or maybe both!), but it is so good to see!!! We did have some fatigue around lunch time, but it was because Parker was without flowing oxygen for about 10 minutes due to an equipment malfunction that we didn't figure out right away. His oxygen sats dropped and stayed in the low 80's until we fixed the problem, so it took him a while to recover from that. He kept busy today working on Legos, painting a pumpkin, and playing "Go Fish" with me.

In other news, my Mom and Dad are flying back to Utah in the morning :( We are so grateful they were able to be here this week to help us out. Kelsey and Connor really enjoyed spending time with them--it was nice to know they were in good hands while Jason and I had to be away. For the coming week, our church family has rallied around us and will be taking turns caring for Kelsey and Connor and providing some meals for us. We are so grateful for all of them as well! It really eases our burden just a bit to know that we will have the help we need next week.