Tough Day

    

     I'll start off by saying that Jessica is doing fine...However, it was a tough day!  Jess had an uncomfortable night and morning.      

     I debated even blogging about this but figured it would have to be explained down the road regardless and it is kind of therapeutic writing about it.  For reasons yet to be fully determined, Jessica stopped breathing at around 2:30pm.  Here is how it played out...The monitor started beeping and I checked on her figuring that, yet again, the EKG leads fell off.  Jessica wasn't moving or breathing, her lips were blue and I watched her eyes "roll" upwards turning into the back of her head.  We called for help and I gave her shoulders a shake.  I am assuming the combination of me yelling and the shake of her shoulders brought her back to us, her eyes snapped back and she took a very deep gulping breath as if she was coming up from the water.  She then started crying and trying to catch her breath.  As you can imagine, it was a termendously difficult moment for us and continues to be as I go back though it.

     It is important to say again that Jessica is now doing fine and resting comfortably.  A series of tests were done including rechecking her blood chemistry and chest xrays.  This is what they believed to have happened.  It was not just one thing.  The fact that Jessica had been in distress this morning, she had been administered pain medication on a regular basis.  Nothing even close to being in excess and even less than the previous day in ICU but it was given in a short period of time after letting the levels decrease over night.  Thus, a sort of "catch up" was underway.  A second issue which was seen on the chest xray was that she had increased gas in her abdomin which was believed to be starting to put pressure on her diaphram.  A third obvious issue was the fact that she had underwent a major surgery and her body was trying to recover.  All these issues combined together creating a big problem...The Morphine was causing her muscles to relax combined with increase pressure on her diaphram was enough to stop her breathing.

     The Nurses and Doctors are absolutely incredible and the care is second to none.  Steph and I have a very difficult time in understanding Jessica's pain levels on a daily basis so you can imagine how hard it is for the health care professionals to do the same...there is no blame to be laid.  It is simply our little girl who continues to keep us guessing.

     Well, that's it for tonight.  I am off to get some food to my lovely wife.  We will keep you posted as soon as we can.  Thanks everyone for the amazing support through emails, etc.  I won't make any calls tonight as I have now realized what a puddle of gooo I have become after seeing this today.

Here is a nice picture of Jess taken this morning hugging her Frog while the bandage on her leg was changed: