A lot on our plate

The day started out with a call that Bridger had a quiet night. My next call was that his white count was increased (sign of infection) and his BNP was increased (sign of heart failure), but that he was still doing fine. I asked if I could come see him today, but they were still a little leery of that idea and asked if I could wait until tomorrow. The next phone call I received was from the doctor saying that Bridger had taken a turn and would probably have to be reintubated (put the breathing tube back in), I asked if I could please come see him and she asked to have the chance to intubate and stabilize him before answering that question. Finally I got a phone call saying that I could come and that someone would meet me outside with a gown and mask that I could put on before going into the hospital. After 3 long days I finally got to see my baby boy, I have never been apart from him for that long. He was sedated and paralyzed, but they said he was looking better than he had just before I arrived. I was able to sit with him for a few hours. While I was there, I received the news that Stanford declined evaluating Bridger for transplant, they said he is higher risk because of his multiple heart surgeries. So we are sending his chart to St. Louis and Baylor (the only two other facilities in the U.S. that perform pediatric heart/lung). We have some things to work out in the mean time, Bridger needs to stabilize and extubate, we are going to try and replace his G-tube with a G-J-tube(one that feeds into the intestine, not the stomach) and also get our bearings back. Tomorrow they are going to let me move back into the PICU, it isn't standard protocol, but if we are running out of time I can not spend anymore time away from Bridger than I have to. So we will play a little more of the waiting game for the next few days.