Curious Behavior

Yesterday afternoon, Isaac demonstrated some peculiar behavior. While he was awake, his eyes began fluttering in a choppy fashion - much like a ball bouncing within a box. He then brought both arms into his chest, similar to a chest press, & raised his eyebrows. Then relaxed. This rhythm repeated about 8 or 9 times, then he was back to himself & eventually, fell fast asleep. I mentioned it to his nurse & we decided just to keep an eye out for it occurring again. It wasn't until last night that this behavioral rhythm returned, occurring more frequently. They continued sporadically even after getting a second bolus of sedation meds.

We're concerned that this may be seizure activity. The rapid eye movement & repeated rhythmic behavior points towards this, however his vitals are unaffected by each episode. So one other possibility is that he is retching, which like dry-heaving. An EEG will be done on Isaac today, monitoring brain activities for a period of time to determine whether he is in fact having seizures & hopefully the cause of them. Seizures can result from a variety of causes: dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, bleeding in the brain. For now, its a waiting game to see what Isaac does & what the EEG shows.

Isaac's white cell count is up this morning as well, which indicates either infection or validates seizure activity. Culture results should be back within the next 48 hours to validate whether or not he has an infection. On a positive note, respiratory therapy has gone down again on his rate (amount of breaths given per minute by the machine) from 14 to 10 & so far, our boy has taken the change in stride. The next blood gas will tell us more of how he's handling the change. This may be one step closer to extubation.

So that's the news for now: possible seizures & infection, but progress on the vent. More to come later tonight...