Kendall was moved to the ICU today. He has been getting progressively worse each day. Today his breathing was much more labored, and he was very agitated and the encephalopathy (confusion) was a lot worse. As the doctors had feared he was starting to fight against breathing and keeping his oxygen mask on. Kendall’s kidney numbers were also a lot worse today, so the decision was made that they would go ahead and try dialysis. That was, of course, very complicated for many reasons, but today for the first time his platelet count stayed above 32, so they thought they could risk it.
For multiple reasons they didn’t feel it was safe to sedate Kendall for the surgery to place the central venous catheter dialysis line in his neck. So I got to participate in surgery! (OK, only sort of, but still a new experience for me.) They needed me to help keep Kendall calm and very, very still throughout the whole surgery (which felt incredibly long), so I was under the surgical drape holding his head and hands and talking him through it. He made it! It really was a miracle. He had been so agitated all day, that was really the first time since I had been there that he had truly held still. There were a lot of things that could have gone seriously wrong if Kendall had moved, so I was praying that he would be able to quiet long enough for the doctors to do what needed to be done.
During the dialysis Kendall’s blood pressure suddenly dropped very low (after being high for months now), so it got exciting in his room for a bit there. They were able to give Kendall a low dose of a medicine that they felt his liver could tolerate to start to bring his blood pressure back up. We’ll have to see what this will mean going forward with different procedures they hope to do. Kendall is still working really hard to breathe, so they haven’t ruled out putting him on a ventilator (really hope they don’t have to, because again, complicated).
I had a very frank discussion with Kendall’s doctors today, because I can clearly see that things are not going well and that he is very, very sick. They said that there is still a possibility that Kendall could turn a corner and start to get better. So for now that is what I will hope and pray for.
One bright spot of the day happened when one of the medical staff whom I hadn’t met yet came into Kendall’s room saying she had “a treat and a hug for me.” It turns out that one of my friends from grad school used to work at Huntsman and had reached out to a former co-worker to deliver some well wishes for me. It came at exactly the perfect moment, too. Yay for fellow SLP’s!