Follow - MD Appointments

This week has been a week of doctors appointments for our family.

On Tuesday night, Brian took Joey, our dog, to the vet for her yearly appointment. One never knows what to expect when you take a 17 year old dog to the doctors. We were all a little anxious especially the kids. Well, the doctor was shocked when she saw Joeys birth year of 1998. Brian said she did a double take and he had to finish her sentence when she said, well Joey you are...OLD. Blood work was done just because you never know what is going on inside. Pending those results we have a happy healthy OLD dog. We actually spoke with the vet this morning and all is good....just an OLD dog.

Wednesday was Ian's turn for a follow-up. For him it was the pulmonary doctor. Over all things are looking ok. Ian has some trouble with his in-line humidification system..we decided to get a few different ones from the respiratory therapist to see what we could do. An hour into being out and about, we started to see his signs of not tolerating the in-line humidification system...labored breathing, blotchy red coloring in the face, extreme dryness...As much as I hate seeing Ian like this, I have to say I was glad it was happening at the MD office...with them seeing it, easier to trouble shoot. So trouble shooting we did, one of the concerns the MD had was that Ian could only tolerate the HME for an hour before starting to have problems...she had patients who could go hours but not handle a whole day, never just an hour. Our home respiratory therapists was also there and she said that one thing she was thinking was because Ian can't regulate his body temperature he can't hold any of the moisture in his body as well which is needed to produce the humidity for the HME. This struck a thought....maybe it was in the actual circuit of the vent not in the HME...the HME provides a little bit more resistance then being on the home humidification system...that extra resistance could be the reason Ian is having problems. So it was decided to increase his vent settings, his pressure support and pressure controls to be exact. His previous settings were his original ones from when he went on the vent in March 2013...and they were low settings. So the MD said that we were also trying to have "baby" settings on an "adult" child. So settings have been increased...and now we try him on the HME a few times at home to see how he does. According to the MD, we still have room to go up if we need to. 

This morning was a drive to Dupont to check in with the orthopedic...it was a great visit. The x-rays looked fantastic. You are able to actually see some of the bones fusing. All the hardware is still in place, and his wound looks beautiful. Making the decision to have the surgery was one of the hardests we have had to make in dealing with PCH1A... We have seen an incredible outcome... Less pain, more comfortable, a small increase in lung capacity and the ability to sit longer. We could not be happier with the outcomes.