10/9: Leo is in Intensive Care

The "regular" doctors on the "normal" side of the pediatric floor have driven Leo into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). I don't even know where to begin...

We came-in 9 days ago because Leo wasn't eating. Now, not only is he not being fed, he had to have 2 CT scans today to rule-out bleeding in his brain and in his belly because his hemoglobin dropped to 5 (normal levels are above 11 or 12). The 5 was detected at about 6am this morning, but no one told us. They thought it was a mistake because yesterday's level was between 10-12. So they did another one at about 9am. Same result. Still no one told us because they still wouldn't believe it. In the mean time, Leo's condition steadily got worse until Dr. Battle, the director of palliative care, stopped by and just looked at Leo. She immediately called PICU and a few minutes later Leo was on his way to the other side of the pediatric floor.

Tests and results:

• Before even getting to PICU, the infectious disease doctors came by and told us yesterday's blood culture has been negative so far. This is very confusing because Saturday's was positive. So even though they aren't sure he really has an infection, they're being very risk-averse and still continuing antibiotics.
• When we got the PICU, Leo had an abdominal x-ray to rule-out mechanical obstruction of the intestines. There was no obstruction (e.g. twisting), but CTs were still required.
• After a bunch more blood tests, antibiotics, and the start of another blood transfusion, I went with Leo to the CT scans. Fortunately they all showed there didn't seem to be any bleeding anywhere. The CT scans did show that his entire digestive tract is backed-up.

Leo has been so constipated that he can't even poop anymore, probably thinking it's going to hurt so much (and is probably is). So in the PICU, after all the tests return negative, they decided that the only course of action is to clear-up his digestive tract. A gastroenterologist, Dr. Berman, stopped by before Leo was taken to the PICU and suggested something called, "Go Lightly," to help Leo with the constipation. So the PICU was going to start that as soon as the transfusion was complete.

Then after the transfusion was complete, nurse Sandy decided to draw-back from Leo's NG tube to see if anything was in the stomach. She drew-back about 200mL of goo! It looked like coffee with milk that's about to go bad. It smelled exactly like the PediaSure they had been giving Leo a few days back, which stopped Saturday. The problem is, of course, that that had been in his stomach ever since! Combined with the constipation, this were probably the cause of his discomfort and straining. As soon as she drew-out that crap, Leo's pulse came down (it has been too high), his breathing rate slowed to normal, and his blood pressure normalized.

Clearly Leo is in critical shape. The two main things that need to be done are to clear-out his digestive tract and continue the antibiotics to clear the infection. The last, but possibly most important, thing that we need to do -- and I beg everyone reading this will do -- is pray for Leo. He's only 3 1/2. He hasn't even had a chance. Please join us to pray and beg G-d to give Leo a chance.