long weekend....

Five day summary

On Friday Ethan's fever became worse. He was constantly hot and lethargic and medication was doing little to bring the temperatures down. So on Saturday another echo (heart ultrasound) was performed and endocarditis in the conduit was the likely cause. We were told that as the conduit is made of gortex it would need to be replaced (the same operation he had last October). A transfer to RCH, cardiac ward was arranged. The ambulance arrived and then left with out us. Ethan needed to be in an isolation room due to being diagnosed with paraflu 1, there were none available. They tested again for the flu bug hoping it had gone so he could go on the ward..it had gone but paraflu 3 was grown! Saturday night he became very hot, he started vomiting, his respiratory rate and heart rate went through the roof and his oxygen levels dropped. His oxygen took longer than usual to come back up. He also had low blood pressure and weak pulses. He was reviewed by the ICU registrar and an ICU bed was needed. Ethan didn't like the sound of this and while they were getting things ready he decided to slow down his breathing (down to 55!) and pick up his BP. Later that night Ethan had had enough of being hot and dropped his temperature to 34. It took 3 hours to pick up. This was followed straight away with a fever of 39. We managed to avoid ICU but were quickly transferred to 7west at RCH Sunday morning.

On Sunday at RCH he was fully cardiac monitored and more tests were carried out. Ethan at this stage remained pretty lethargic and hot. From Sunday until now he has improved slowly. His temperatures are not lasting as long and he has started to eat. The cardiology team have reviewed his past echos and have compared them to the recent ones, and at this stage feel he may not have endocarditis and thus the conduit may not need to be changed. They are still in the process of reviewing today's echo so this may change.

Over the weekend Ethan started losing his hair in clumps so a haircut was also ordered!