We walked into Mason's room Wednesday morning for feeding and status check up to find three nurses around his bed and alarms going off. Scared the shit out of me. They were just drawing blood to run tests and had him all riled up. Just not what I expected to see at all. Unfortunately during the night his blood oxygen levels went down and he lost a lot of color in his skin. This worried the doctors because he is in the oxygen hood. The air pockets on the lungs have not decreased either. So they are did an echocardiogram on his heart to see if the heart is causing the problem. The heart could not be pumping the blood sufficiently to the lungs.
They ended up having to put him on a ventilator to help him breathe. His heart and lungs were working too hard and they could not get him to calm down. The docs sedated him a bit to get the vent in and get more tests ran. They did more xrays of his chest to make sure the tube was in correctly and get another look at the air pockets.
Diagnoses is Persistent pulmonary hypertension aka persistent fetal circulation. Lungs think he is still inside my belly so the heart sends less oxygen to them. Pulmonary pressure needs to go down so oxygen can get to lungs. If dopamine doesn't work then we have to go to another hospital for nitric oxide treatment. His heart and lungs structurely look good.
Within a few hours Mason's blood oxygen levels decreased. The decision was made to transfer him to Children's hospital in DC so he could get the nitric oxide treatment. It was another breakdown moment for me. I just knew the dopamine was going to work and we wouldn't have to leave. I just couldn't understand why. Why my poor little baby boy was having to go through all this.
They transported him via helicopter. The medivac people had the nitric oxide hooked up as soon as they got there. Within minutes his blood oxygen levels were 100%! His color came back and he really looked so much better. Even though it was amazing news, I knew it could change in a heartbeat. Literally!
The new hospital was different but we were thankful to have a private room. It even has a beautiful view of downtown DC. They had Mason set up in no time and the nurse barely left his side all night. They had to redo some of his iv lines but he was good for the most part. They had him on a cocktail of meds and heavily sedated to keep him from pulling his tubes and trying to breathe on his own. The new doctor talked to us and warned us this could still be a long, difficult road before we were out of the woods. Mason had a stable night so I was able to get some sleep.
When we got to Children's on Wednesday night I was finally able to start pumping. I was exhausted but my boobs were screaming they needed some relief. I am going to do my best to stick with the every 2-3 hour schedule but I guess Mason's status will dictate that.
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