Setback

Clayton saw great progress in decreasing his drainage from his chest tubes last week.  The left chest tube was able to come out on Thursday, and the right chest tube continued to decrease it's output little by little each day.  On Friday the output was about 50mL, and on Saturday, the output was about 30mL, which is the target amount for pulling, so the plan was to pull the last tube on Sunday.

Sunday morning arrived, and sometime between 7 and 9am, the chest tube started to pick up its drainage.  Clayton's team rounded before 10am and decided to get a chest x-ray before pulling the tube, which is protocal, but it was especially wanted seeing as the tube had put out quite a bit of fluid in a two hour time period.  The x-ray showed fluid, and lots of it, all between the lung and its lining on his right side.  By the time we made it back up to Clayton's room from radiology at about 10:30am, the tube had already drained 50mL since 7am.  It continued to drain most of the day and finished out the 24 hour period at 238mL, far from the goal of 30mL. 

There are a few theories.  There may have been a pocket of fluid that became trapped around his lung because the tube wasn't in exactly the right place to drain it.  It's possible that Clayton twisted in just the right way Sunday morning to open up that pocket, allowing the fluid to drain down into the tube.  It is also possible that the tube had become clogged at the tip and wasn't letting fluid drain properly through it, thus looking like it was decreasing, while it was really just building in the chest cavity.  Either way, for some reason, there was a lot of fluid trapped up there, and now it's on its way down.

I had, of course, gotten my hopes up for getting out of the hospital on Monday (today), but that obviously didn't happen, and probably won't happen for a while now.  It's definitely depressing.  We miss Eli and Aaron so much, and I want us to all sleep in our own beds in our own home.  If you've ever slept on these McDonald House beds, you know why.  There's only so much a back can take.

We are thankful the fluid was found before the tube was removed; otherwise, the tube would have had to have been replaced, and that's a pretty traumatic procedure, so that's one positive.  We're also grateful that Clayton didn't show any signs of distress with all that fluid trapped up there.  He was never in any pain, never had any desats, and didn't have any trouble breathing.  I'm also grateful that Clayton has turned into a complete tv vegetable because there is little else to do while hospitalized, and tv keeps him pretty happy.  He'll definitely be in withdrawl when we get home.

Thanks for your prayers for our family.  It's been a disappointing couple days, but at least Clayton's okay.