On Monday James went to the pulmonologist and a hematologist to go over the blood tests he had last week. For those of you who don’t know, a pulmonologist deals with the lungs, and a hematologist specializes in blood and blood disorders. They still think the high liver enzymes is from one or more of the medications that James is taking. This is not the first time the liver enzymes have been elevated. The high white blood count is because of his respiratory issues. If you look at James you can see it. He is struggling to breathe a little bit. His pulse ox kept going off at the doctor’s office because he couldn’t keep his sats above 85. As a refresher, the pulse ox measures the saturation of oxygen in the blood, as a percentage. A perfect number would be 100, but for James we’re happy if he is in the low 90s. His machine is set to alarm if he drops below 86.
The pulmonologist recommended we put James on low oxygen to see if that helps, but ultimately, the thing that would solve his respiratory issues would be to put a trach in. The subject of a trach first came up in November 2009, and we have been discussing here and there since then, but I think this might have been the first time the pulmonologist used that word. James sees the ENT for ear tubes in April, so we’ll see what his thoughts are about a trach. If you want more info on what a trach is, please read my What Is a Trach? post.
We will repeat the blood tests in about a month and also do an abdominal ultrasound to make sure there are no masses or tumors that could be causing the respiratory issues.
This is why I am glad Stacy and I are a team in this world of James. She was—and I was, too—a little bit emotional talking about putting a trach in James. And then just hearing the words mass and tumor. This is all stuff that as a parent you don’t want to think about. This is our world. James is a complicated kid. But Stacy and I are a team, and we’ll get through this together.
