Saturday was also great. Cooper was definitely himself, in fact it was very hard keeping him in one place even with the millions of cords and oxygen he was hooked up to. His chest xray showed a lot of improvement, the best one yet. By 4pm they had turned his oxygen down enough that they were ready to start our 24 hour window. He had to keep the nasal piece on just in case something happened overnight but everyone was feeling very confident.
I don't think I mentioned this before but the pediatric pulmonary specialist we have been seeing, Dr. Elliott, stopped by every day. In fact, he followed Cooper's progress throughout each day via phone with the intensivist while he was managing his practice. We saw him by dinner time each night and even on Saturday, he and his CPNP came by for a visit. It made me feel a lot better knowing there was at least one person consistent, especially the person who had promised to figure out what in the world is going on with Cooper's respiratory system. Throughout our stay, he was convinced it was time to do an exploration of Cooper's airways via Bronchoscope. As scary as anesthesia can be, with this being our 2nd stay totally 6 days, I was very ready to take this step. I wanted to find out what was going on just as bad as the doctor did. He played around with the idea of maybe trying to get an OR for Labor Day. He said he was a little concerned that Cooper's "well" was what we were seeing. He was concerned that Cooper may not get "better" in the usual sense of the word and we would need to weigh the risks. We discussed all different kinds of things that could be wrong as I mentioned in a previous post. But for this pneumonia to cause this much trouble was definitely concerning. It suggested there was something bigger going on.
Cooper's progress over the next 24 hours was unbelievable. Saturday evening, they unhooked him enough to leave his room and take a little wagon ride around the PICU. By Sunday, morning I was begging the nurses to unhook him from everything so he could move around. Turns out they were so impressed with his progress they wanted to discharge him. Watching him really walk for the first time was definitely hard. He wobbled on his tiny legs he hadn't used in days. But walking I have learned, is like riding a bike.
Dr. Elliott decided to keep our original appointments for Tuesday (follow up chest xray and cystic fibrosis sweat test...which was NEGATIVE, by the way!) and we would schedule the bronchoscope (which will be this coming Tuesday) following that appointment. It was obvious Cooper was going to beat this pneumonia and everyone was more comfortable with anesthesia if Coop was as healthy as possible.
I can't even begin to say how thankful we are for the PICU nurses. I felt like they were in this with us the whole time. We had 2 nurses that were mediocre but I think they only stood out because everyone else was so amazing. Each day/night different nurses were assigned to different patients, even the nurses that weren't assigned to us would stop by and say hello or check to see how Coop was feeling. It was pretty amazing. I wish that everyone who ever has to stay in a hospital is blessed with nurses like them.
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