joshua, my husband, returned from a 4-week-long business trip to quitaque, tx a week and a half ago. two days after he got back, we were rear-ended at a stop light and our car was totaled. :-/ no one was hurt, thankfully, and we have enough insurance money to buy a used station wagon from a family member... so, everything really worked out the best way that it could!
now, 10 days later i am typing this from the waiting room outside the pediatric intensive care unit at medical city childrens hospital, in dallas. my almost-1-year-old son, rowan (his birthday is 10/5), was admitted here this past monday, 9/22, with a bacterial infection in his windpipe that was causing his windpipe to swell and close. he was intubated and put under heavy sedation, and moved to a private room in the PICU. it all happened a little fast... i took him to our family doctor early monday afternoon because he had been sick since wednesday with a fever and congestion. by sunday night his breathing was so labored and his chest was retracting (caving in) with every breath. he sounded like he was breathing through a straw. at his appointment monday, the doctor took one look at his chest and told me to go to the ER. this really took me off guard; i was expecting a shot, a breathing treatment maybe, and then on our way home, maybe pick up a prescription on the way for him, and then get home and fix something to eat. suddenly i found myself on my first trip to the ER, with my three-year-old daughter, micah in tow. my stepfather, wesley, met me at the pediatric ER at medical city dallas, and he was able to help with micah, and help keep me calm as well (he is a paramedic and very familiar with the goings-on of an emergency room, hospital, etc.). he also helped me not make a critical mistake of not letting the triage nurse in the ER know exactly how serious my situation was. in my heart i was wanting and needing the situation to be less serious, so i kind of strolled up to the triage window and calmly said, "uh, you know, my son is having a little bit of trouble breathing." smile, nod. wesley stuck his head over my shoulder and said, "her family doctor just saw her little boy and told her to bring him straight to you guys." that kind of changed her energy. she got us into a holding room and started rowan on breathing treatments right away, which he responded to temporarily, but the doctors knew something else was going on, something we couldn't see.
ahhh, this is so much detail, i appreciate anyone who has read this far...
after a bunch of bustling around and different doctors and nurses rushing in and out of our little ER holding room, rowan was moved to the OR for his intubation (insertion of his breathing tube). i got to hold him in the hospital bed as they wheeled us down the hall. he was so tired from working so hard to breathe, his little body just relaxed against mine. when we got inside the OR, i continued to hold him close as one of the ear, nose and throat doctors held a mask delivering sedation over his face. he struggled a little, but quickly fell asleep, and the doctors lifted him out of my arms. i wriggled out from under all the IVs and sensors that were already attached to him, and a nurse led me, trembling and feeling rather numb, back to the waiting room. the breathing tube was inserted with "mild difficulty" (i saw this on his chart later). my dad and josh's dad came to the hospital and sat with us while we waited to hear how the intubation procedure had gone. about an hour and 15 mins later, josh and i were able to join him in his private room in the PICU. he has been here since then, in and out of wakefullness but mostly deeply asleep.
two ENTs (ear, nose, and throat doctors) were on duty Monday, when we were admitted. one of them, rowan's attending doctor, dr. timothy trone, specializes in pediatric airways. the other one, whose name i didn't catch, had just returned from delivering a lecture on pediatric airway emergencies. i feel overwhelmed with the sense that we came to this hospital for a reason, that i was led here, brought here to those two doctors, who had all the expertise, knowledge, experience, and passion to quickly recognize my son's critical condition, act accordingly to capture his airway, and save his life.
i cried in the ER when there seemed to be a lot of nervous, urgent energy surrounding rowan and i began for the first time to fear for his life. i cried last night, when the nurse was working on getting some more sedative in his IV line and he was pulling against his restraints and his heart rate was rising, and i leaned in close and sang a familiar song in his ear. it is very difficult to sing and cry at the same time. and i cried a couple of hours ago, when another one of rowan's attending doctors, dr. matsen, took josh and i to see rowan's chest x-rays. rowan's extubation (the removal of his breathing tube) was scheduled for early this morning, but his x-ray showed that his left lung was slightly diminished and has some fluid in it (all very commonplace for someone on a ventilator), so his doctors decided to give him another 24 hours of breathing treatments and CPT (chest percussion therapy) before they extubate. my heart was so light all last night and early this morning with the hope that i would be holding him in my arms today, and the disappointment briefly overwhelmed me. but after a good, hard cry in my husband's strong, comforting embrace, i felt peaceful and happy again. rowan's lung will be in wonderful shape tomorrow morning. he has no signs of pneumonia, and his infection is showing all the signs of disappearing. dr. matsen is happy with his progress, and told us that in all likelihood if they took the tube out today, rowan would cough a bit and his left lung would pop out and be fine... but just to be on the safe side, we will wait. i am so thankful for dr. matsen and dr. trone, for their expertise and diligence.
oh my gosh, this is so long... all my posts will not be this long, i guarantee. i created my blog a couple of days ago, and so much has happened that i haven't had time to post regularly. so i'm squeezing it all in here. thanks, again, to anyone who's read it this far. : )
here is rowan on the 2nd or 3rd day, with his breathing tube in...
and here's me holding him a couple of hours after the tube came out...
and here he is the day we were discharged, all better! : ) this is my favorite one to look at.
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