When we got there he was running a fever again and breathing extremely hard. The resident that first looked him over did not think that they were going to find anything else but ordered another chest x-ray. When they came in the room and I saw their faces I knew that something major was wrong. His left lung was on the verge of collapsing! It is called a Plural Effusion, and it is when the plural area around your lung becomes filled with fluid. Apparently the amount of fluid was very impressive for a child his size and he needed surgery. At that point I lost it! I called my Mom and sister in tears and they both rushed to the hospital to be with Adam and I. The odd part was that his lung was not really working but he did not even need a lot of oxygen at that point. All the Doctors were amazed by how great he looked compared to how sick he was.
Once they moved us up to his room they started him on all his meds and said that he would have surgery to place a chest tube first thing in the morning as well as a central line. A central line is a catheter that is placed in an artery in the chest or the neck. For Ryan they used an artery in his neck to help place the central line but the actual devise was in his chest. They placed this because it would replace all his IV’s and make life so much easier for him because it was really hard to get blood from him and they needed a lot because they did not know why he was still sick. At this point it was obvious that we were not treating the real issue.
I was a wreck the morning of the surgery and so was Adam but he did not show it. My Mom and Sister were also there with us, which made it a little better. I was so scared that Ryan was not going to come back from surgery that I did not want to hand him over. I was just not comfortable with someone cutting into Ryan’s lung and arteries but the surgery was a success. They were able to remove 350cc of fluid from his left lung and place the chest tube, and central line with out a problem. The surgeon said that the fluid and inside of his lung looked like it was infected with valley fever. She was not sure but that was her educated guess.
Once Ryan was back in his room we kept him heavily medicated because he was in tremendous pain with every breath. It was so hard looking at my baby like that. I felt so helpless. But I have to say that it was nice he did not try to move around a lot and just let me hold him. At this point he knew that he was sick and was no longer fighting it. The doctors had Ryan on several different IV antibiotics and one for Valley Fever while they were waiting for the results but in the mean time Ryan would spike fevers every night and it was so scary because all we could do was wait. Once the surgeon took out the chest tube Ryan looked better but he was still spiking really high fever every night but the Doctors said all this was normal. On Monday we got the good/ bad news that he in fact had valley fever. I was happy simply because his illness now had a name and we could treat it. The issue with all the medicine they were giving him was that it was for bacteria and valley fever is a fungus. We had a few more set back but Ryan was allowed to go home on August 11th, seven days after being admitted.
These days he looks really good but gets tired very easy. He has to be on his antifungal meds for 3 to 6 months and follow up with the Pediatric Infectious Dieses Doctor every two months. I guess valley fever can spread to the bones and even the brain if not treated, Ryan was blessed! Next week (November 1st) we will be getting new labs to check his valley fever levels, his liver function because the medicine is hard on his liver and a new chest x-ray. God has been so immensely faithful to Ryan that I know everything will be ok.
For more information on valley fever visit: this link
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