A big scare

Tuesday, August 25th

Shortly before midnight Monday night, Avery started to feel nauseous. They gave her a dose of Benadryl which seemed to help and allow her to fall back asleep. She woke a couple of hours later though complaining of a bad headache. They gave her some Tylenol which she immediately threw up. She continued to complain of nausea and headache. They ended up giving her a dose of Reglan, but she vomited again as soon as she received it as well. Eventually they were able to get her to hold down a dose of Tylenol, but it did nothing for the pain. She was crying and waking in pain throughout the night. Finally, a dose of morphine seemed to give her some pain relief, but she vomited once more before she fell back asleep around 8:30 am.

Although the head pain was lessened, it was not completely gone. They decided to give her a stat dose of Dexamethasone. She continued to sleep the rest of the day only waking to go to the bathroom a couple of times. Around 3pm, she vomited again. She was still very groggy, but was able to stand on her own while we changed her bed sheets. Due to her behavior, the team decided to send her for a CT scan to check to see if the ventricles in her brain had changed any which may explain some of her symptoms.

She continued to grow more lethargic while we waited for the CT results. Thankfully our nurse and charge nurse recognized that things seemed to be deteriorating quickly, so they decided to call a CHAT to get extra sets of eyes on her. As we were waiting on the team to gather, Avery's heart rate began plummeting into the 30s, so they called a code. Immediately a team of people swarmed her room and began working on her. There seemed to be close to 20 people in the room and then 20 people out in the hall. It was terrifying to watch as they all worked...taking vitals, pushing meds, making decisions. We are so thankful for our 8QB team that took such good care of Avery and managed to take care of Shon and I as well during the ordeal. The neurosurgeons came in and determined that she needed an emergency EVD placed to relieve the pressure on her brain caused by fluid. It was extremely time sensitive, so they rushed her to the PICU to place the EVD. Our doctor was honest with us and told us her status could really go either way based on the emergent situation, so we waited not knowing if we needed to be prepared for the worst.

A few hours later, they called to tell us that Avery was stable. They could not get the EVD in the correct place in the PICU, so they had to take her to CT to be able to see where it needed to go. Due to this move, they had to put her on a ventilator to protect her when they went to CT. Once the EVD was placed, she was moved back to the PICU for the night. The amount of fluid drained from her brain was not as large as they expected. This could have been due to some of the meds they pushed or that her pressure wasn't as high as they thought given her symptoms. Either way, they could not take the risk of not placing the drain. The ICU doctor did reassure us that there should be no long term damage.

Avery is currently still on the ventilator, but we expect her to come off of it sometime tonight. She is restrained because she keeps grabbing for it when she wakes. She is waking and responding to us, but she keeps falling asleep. They need to ensure that she will continue to breath on her own when she goes to sleep without the vent.

We are so thankful for God protecting Avery today in a situation that could have ended so badly. It was the most scared that Shon and I have ever been in our lives.

Unfortunately, Avery was not able to receive chemo today due to the events of the afternoon. This is a setback in a plan/schedule that is already short on time. She still has a huge mountain to climb to fight this cancer, but she has proven to us once again how tough she is. We hope to move to a step down unit tomorrow and be back on 8QB in a couple of days.

Please continue to pray for:

- No more setbacks or scares

- Chemo to be effective

- For the EVD to be removed in a fairly quick timeline

- Complete healing on Earth