plus ca change...... sigh....

ok, so remember the other day when i said that everything was going swimmingly and asher has never been healthier and more stable than he is right now? yeah. forget that. sigh.

as you may or may not know, summer is not asher's friend. he loves the sunshine, and he loves being outside, playing in the sandbox, driving around in his little tykes car, drawing with sidewalk chalk, riding his trike, you know, all that fun - and normal! - 2-year-old stuff. but, alas, summer does not return to love. heat and humidity really take a lot out of him, unfortunately. and since we live where we do, there's a lot of humidity. (as for heat, yeah, where's this global warming we're being told about? i mean, would it be too much to ask to have temps above 23C?!?! i mean, seriously!!! anyhoo...)

due to the heat wave this week, asher wasn't looking so good. very pale and sweaty, not much energy, and so on. and blue spells. yeah. he's been having blue spells all week. but again, summer is not an ideal time for my little man. so he's been looking pretty bad this week. but, the weather wasn't nice, so i didn't think much of it. just brushed it off, knowing this is what happens. (that being said, he slept at his dad's place on monday night, because his apartment is cooler than the upstairs at my place, and since ash was looking pretty rough at dinner in the cool kitchen, i sent him to ed's.) but other than that, i brushed it all of.

and then came a storm on thursday, and that broke the humidity nicely. so friday was GORGEOUS!!! asher spent most of the day outside playing, making wonderful memories (i hope) with his brother and sister in the backyard. but...

he turned blue again a few times. not too badly. i mean, i've seen him worse, and recently, at that. but still, it wasn't hot, it wasn't humid, so really, ash should not have been doing this.

at dinner on friday, he was blue. and i don't mean a pretty shade of baby blue. i mean, his mouth was navy blue, and his hands were blue-grey and COLD!!! so needless to say, i took him to emerg. if it was still hot and humid, i wouldn't have thought much of it, and moved on with my day. but it wasn't. and he was not looking good. still playful, mind you, so i wondered if i was overreacting a bit, but i can't really be too careful with ash when he does this, so i took him in.

and of course, true to form, we got there and he was great. good colour, playful, vitals were great. seriously, he played the whole time we were there.

and the resident came to see him, and i said to him, "yeah, he's looking great, he's got lots of energy, he hasn't had a blue spell the whole time we've been here, so i'm happy to just take him home now." he seemed cool with that, so he went to chat with the attending. who sent in a nurse to check his sats (can't send him home with blue spells without checking the sats). and they were... sit down... 69%!!!!!!!! and since ash usually sits in the low 80s, this was a HUGE problem. we moved the probe around, putting it on his finger, his thumb, and still 69-74%. so we went out into the hall and tried another machine, hoping it would give us a better reading. nope. still low 70s. ugh. so we had him sit down, and put the probe on a toe. and it was still low 70s. after a few minutes of resting, though, it crept back up to the low 80s. but again, that was after some rest. so....

chest x-ray, ecg, and bloodwork (just a cbc this time, so they did a finger poke). everything looked fine, although his haemoglobin was only a bit higher than cardio wanted (they said, "if it's below 130, we'll have to admit him" which means transfusion). (and why do we care about haemoglobin? haemoglobin is the fancy-schmancy name for red blood cells. these carry oxygen to the body. hypoplasts/single ventricles usually have high haemoglobin to compensate for the low oxygen levels. if it gets too low, then there won't be enough oxygen in the blood, which shows up as low sats. transfusion = higher haemoglobin = higher sats. there you go. a quick phlebotomy lesson. feel enlightened? you should. lol) ok, so cardio wanted to see something higher than 130. asher usually sits in the 170s at least. last night, he was at 140. so we got to go home! hooray!!! but wow! that was close, eh?? eep!

well, then this morning, blithe and bram got up at their usual 7:30-ish. which is usually when asher gets up. and he woke up. crying. so he came in and cuddled up with me. and fell right to sleep (with charlie. seriously, he was using the dog as a pillow. too cute!) and he stayed asleep. all morning. i got up around 11 (we didn't get home from emerg last night till after 1, so i was i tiiiiiredddd!!! and i thought ash was feeling the same, so i didn't think much of him sleeping in. though, i'll admit, that boy can run on surprisingly little sleep sometimes, and he never sleeps in. he gets up with the other kids every day, no matter what) and i thought ash would get up at the same time... which he didn't. he just stayed upstairs. so i let him stay, thinking he was playing with one of his toys or something and would be right down. nope. he fell asleep again. which he doesn't do. ever. i went up to check on him after a while, and he was feeling pretty warm, so i grabbed a thermometer and.... 38.1!!! i even checked twice, just to make sure!!! and it was under his arm, which means his "real" temp was almost 40. (for those who don't live in canadian hospitals, let me convert that for you. 38.1C is 100.5F. 40C is 104F. yeah.) so after a quick consult with his homecare nurse, we trekked off to emerg.

they did some bloodwork, and it turns out that his white cells are WAY higher than they were last night, and now his bicarb is low (which means his blood is more acidic than usual. i can't explain this part. i used up all my knowledge of phlebotomy earlier. sorry). so doc decided to admit him for a few days, at least until his blood culture comes back on monday. this way he can get some IV antibiotics to help him fight off whatever it is that bugging him right now. they're assuming it's viral, because they can't find anything. no sign of infection in his ears, throat, tube site or urine.

and earlier, when i got back from getting some clothes etc, he was on oxygen. it seems that while i was gone, his sats dropped down to the low 70s again, and the docs ordered low 80s, so they had to put him on O2 for a while. right now he's about 79 to 83%. once he falls asleep, those numbers should go back up. (hypoplasts/single ventricle kids are the opposite of the rest of us. when we sleep, our oxygen levels go down. when they rest, theirs go up.)

so now we're in his room on D7-400. he's febrile again, a little over 39 degrees under his arm (which means it's a little over 40), so now we're watching for seizures and waiting for the tylenol to kick in. and in the meantime, he's watching treehouse (go, diego, go... thrilling... why does he shout so much?!?!?!?!?!) and i'm blogging and chatting with a friend.

so, yeah. we're here for the weekend. but i'm reachable. i'll be online a lot of the time, and i have my cell phone on (i'll post the number on the sidebar, in case anyone wants to make arrangements to drop off a chai latte for me, hint hint). so, yeah, basically, we're just hanging out here for the weekend. i'll keep the blog updated as i know things (like what it means that his bicarb is low... you know me, i'm determined to figure that out!! LOL), and any results from his culture. we're crossing all our crossables that this isn't sepsis, but i'm maintaining that it's a virus, since he's done this twice before (last november, and again in may), and it was viral. so yeah, we just have to let this run its course, and then we'll be home. i don't think we'll be here long.

i'll keep you updated. i'm on FB, and i'll be keeping my status updated, and i'll update here, as well. so, i guess i'll talk to you later. :)