Monday Night:

Porter had a bit of a rough night last night but mostly because they went down on his sedation medicine when they said during the day they weren’t going to.  There was obviously some miscommunication again.  When we spoke to the nurse she told us he had been really agitated so she upped his O2 to 100% (which he has not needed in a month) and gave him a bunch of extra morphine. When we asked her how long he’d been like that she said over an hour and when asked if she consulted anyone she said she could call a resident.  Well we were not happy at all to say the least that she hadn’t checked with anyone about what was making Porter so agitated and we ended up speaking with one of the docs.  He reviewed Porter’s day and medications with us and we quickly let him know Porter was not on the right dose of sedation and told him what he needed to be on.  The dr. agreed that it was not a good idea to go down on Porters sedation right now and said he would make sure he gets the correct dose.  

Tuesday: 

Another crazy day.  Porter was still reeling and super agitated this morning.  I quickly realized that he was still on the reduced dose of sedation and not on his original dose.  Porter’s nurse today was not aware that he should be on a different dose so he paged one of the docs.  She confirmed that Porter should be on his original sedation and verified with pharmacy what that should be.  Porter quieted down a little after receiving his extra dose of medicine. He looked like he was working a little harder to breath so they got a chest x-ray and ultra sound and discovered fluid was accumulating in again in his chest.  We knew what that meant – another chest tube.  I was able to stay in the room while they did this today.    They got about 50mls of fluid off right away and it continues to drain.  Porter slept peacefully the rest of the afternoon and even closed his eyes all the way.  We’re hoping for a quiet night tonight so we can get some sleep!