Pneumonia and a G-Tube

What a week! Kyle is home after spending eight days in the hospital--first due to pneumonia, and as he recovered from that, we decided to go ahead with his g-tube (feeding tube) surgery while we were there.

He was admitted with pneumonia last week after his O2 sat was down to 82% on room air and a chest x-ray showed how junky his lower left lobe was. We spent the first four days on Q4 respiratory treatments and antibiotics and no roommate--whee!

The next four days involved an upper GI, the g-tube surgery, and recovery. The worst part was dealing with his pleas to eat food the day of his surgery (he was NPO from 4am until essentially 2pm the following day). He woke from anesthesia begging for Goldfish crackers, and we couldn't let him have any. I may or may not have snuck him a few Goldfish here and there when the nurses weren't looking. It's ironic what an appetite the kid had on the day he couldn't eat due to g-tube surgery.

This was definitely our most pleasant hospital stay yet. He wasn't contagious, so we were allowed to spend time in the 4th floor playroom, the cafeteria, and even go outside and enjoy some sunshine. And it wasn't flu/RSV season, so the nurses were happy and accommodating and instead of impatient and understaffed. It almost felt like we were on vacation at a resort. Almost.

We made the decision to take him to the E.R. just in time--if we had waited another day or so, he would have been even weaker (he refused to eat for two days before) and probably would have taken a lot longer than four days to recover. It was so nice to know that discharge would be "in a day or two" rather than "in a week or two".

And many thanks to my friends who live or work downtown who kept me fed and kept me company during our stay!

Photos of our stay, in chronological order:

Day 1. Feverish and ill and feeling yucky.

He used to be quite fearful of elevators (those impatient elevator doors, ugh!), but he got really good at navigating in and out of them by the end of our stay.

Kyle and his lady poodle friend, Dorothy. The volunteers at PCH came almost everyday with a new therapy dog to cheer Kyle up.

Getting ready to watch Vancouver beat San Jose in Game 6 of the NHL Western Conference finals. Go Canucks Go! (He's also a Diamondbacks baseball fan.)

Kyle was understandably cranky and hungry on the day of his g-tube surgery. The anesthesiologist saved our sanity by putting versed in his IV--the kid went from ornery and fussy to totally high in about fifteen seconds. Hilarity ensued.

Taking a jaunt outdoors, one day post-op.

The view from our window of the tower that makes up the new and improved Phoenix Children's, which had it's ribbon cutting ceremony just yesterday. It's pretty rad.

Kyle hauls ass to the elevators the minute his nurse removed his IV and handed us our walking papers. He didn't need much prompting to get out of there...

Many thanks to the RN's and PCT's who made our stay a pleasant one, and much thanks to Dr. Weiss and his magic tricks. Kyle still talks about them. :)