Showing posts with label pneumatosis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pneumatosis. Show all posts
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Busy, busy, busy!
After a follow up appointment with both the pediatrician and surgeon, she's been given a clean bill of health. We are so grateful! However, we weren't given much explanation to what went on, it's still at the point where everyone has an opinion about what happened, but no one is sure. The good news is that she's healthy and doing very well. These issues are unlikely to reappear, at least that's the going thought... a little hard to say for sure since no one is sure what happened in the first place. She's growing very well and is a pretty good little sleeper. Sorry for not getting pictures up lately... they'll be coming soon!
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Kyleigh's second night
Travis went home that evening to stay with Micah, despite all the drama. The nurses talked me into sleeping on the OB side for a few hours... The Nicu was really busy that night with an emergency surgery on the floor (never a good day), so we really weren't supposed to be over there anyway. At about midnight i went over to check on her and caught one of the neonatologists that was there for the surgery. He explained that he'd examined the ultrasounds they'd done during the day, and that they saw something that appeared to be a mass in her abdomen, between her spleen and her stomach. it was about 1x1" and appeared to be not attached to either organ, but it was hard to tell. He wanted to do a CT scan immediately to get more information (of course there was a multiple trauma car accident that night and radiology was really busy). He also advised us that since he wasn't sure what it was, we should be prepared for possibly doing surgery in the next 24-48 hours.
I'm pretty sure after he explained all of this my reply was, "What?!" No one had mentioned any sort of mass, the ultrasounds were supposed to be of the area of her intestines that was of concern. Thanks be to God, the doctor on that night is probably the sweetest and easiest one to talk to in the group. He did his fellowship at Cincinnati Childrens, and has the great bedside manner to prove it. Anyways... so here I was, trying to figure out what to do. Do I call Trav is the middle of the night and have him drag Micah out? At least I had my wits about me enough to realize I could call my parents and have them come over to our house and have Travis come up here. My parents were already having a heck of a week with her in the nicu and my grandpa in the hospital, but they'd kill me if I didn't call, so I did. Don't remember when exactly Travis got up there, but they got her down for a CT at around 5 am. The doctor came by shortly after (if i remember right) and explained that whatever was on the ultrasound, there was absolutely nothing on the CT scan... Whatever it was had disappeared or never was there to begin with! To this day there's still debate on what went on that night. We'll rack it up to Hartman family miracle # who knows how many. We were so relieved beyond imagination and promptly passed out in the hospital couch and chair. LONG night.
I'm pretty sure after he explained all of this my reply was, "What?!" No one had mentioned any sort of mass, the ultrasounds were supposed to be of the area of her intestines that was of concern. Thanks be to God, the doctor on that night is probably the sweetest and easiest one to talk to in the group. He did his fellowship at Cincinnati Childrens, and has the great bedside manner to prove it. Anyways... so here I was, trying to figure out what to do. Do I call Trav is the middle of the night and have him drag Micah out? At least I had my wits about me enough to realize I could call my parents and have them come over to our house and have Travis come up here. My parents were already having a heck of a week with her in the nicu and my grandpa in the hospital, but they'd kill me if I didn't call, so I did. Don't remember when exactly Travis got up there, but they got her down for a CT at around 5 am. The doctor came by shortly after (if i remember right) and explained that whatever was on the ultrasound, there was absolutely nothing on the CT scan... Whatever it was had disappeared or never was there to begin with! To this day there's still debate on what went on that night. We'll rack it up to Hartman family miracle # who knows how many. We were so relieved beyond imagination and promptly passed out in the hospital couch and chair. LONG night.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
The post I don't care to relive. (part 1)
The second 12 hours.
The Nicu nurse practicioner came to us to examine Kyleigh. She appeared healthy and with no cause for concern other than what they'd already seen. They decided to run x rays and remove some of her belly contents to send off to the lab. The lab results would be at least 24 hours, but the x rays were pretty much immediate. She left and shortly after returned with the neonatologist, who we had with Micah, but didn't remember us right away. They explained that the x ray showed pneumatosis. (We weren't at all familiar with this diagnosis...) They explained that the the bowel was likely infected and the lining had cysts in the wall. This however, had nothing to do with the vomiting blood. However, she didn't appear sick, and that infants with pneumatosis typically appear very ill... They also explained that in this neonatologists 12 years of practice, he'd almost never seen a full term infant with this condition. Things really didn't add up. The protocol for the pneumatosis was 7 days of no food and antibiotics, and obviously she needed to go to the Nicu right away.
And I LOST it.
I almost never lose it. Sometimes with medical things I get visibly frustrated or a little teary eyed, but I hadn't lost it since they day Micah was born, when they told me they had to send me to a different hospital after he was born, and that I wouldn't get to see him for at least a day. (That was not the plan).
Poor doctor, LOL.. I sobbed and sobbed and tried to spit out that we'd been through this all before and this was my HEALTHY baby... that i had one already one with a feeding tube... (of course there was a big logical gap between where she was and a feeding tube, but no one was going to try to reason with me.)
They gave us about a half an hour or an hour with her before they whisked her away. My recovery time was over, all 24 hours of it. That beat Micah's 18 hours i was separated from him. You don't realize how nice it is to lay in bed and have your baby handed to you... to pass the baby around with family (and we were glad we'd had a lot of people in the day before).... that was over now.
They insisted we stay out of her room for the first hour or two while they place and i.v, a tube in her nose, ran labs and tests. We explaied we've seen all of these things plenty with Micah, but they insisted. That is such a crappy feeling, that they're taking your baby and are going to do these things, but oh, you can't be there to comfort them. UGH.
They put a huge tube in her nose (a 10 fr!) to drain the contents of her stomach, since they were still having blood coming out (and it came out for a few days). Blood in the tummy is extremely irritating and they wanted to stop her vomiting. At that point she wasn't totally miserable because of no food, since newborns belly's are the size of a marble and they don't really need anything for the first day or two. She was on i.v. fluids, basically sugar water, so she'd feel more stable and get needed fluids.
We all filed through to see her, and i came and went from the OB floor to the Nicu... They were MUCH closer than Cincy which was nice. What wasn't nice was having to walk past the newborn nursery everytime I went to my room... And hearing the babies crying throughout the night, only to realize it wasn't yours. It was miserable. My OB stopped by that afternoon and caught me in my room... unfortunately she was totally oblivious to what was going on. This poor lady had no idea... She tried SO darn hard for this to all go smoothly, to treat the pregnancy as normal as possible... the whole bit. Of course, i didn't keep it together trying to explain it to her either. She was so sweet and supportive, and reassured me she was in good hands. My delivery nurse stopped by to offer a hug, as did Micah's speech therapist. (who also had no idea what had gone on, poor lady too!)
(Had to change this to the next twelve hours, not up for explaining the next twelve yet... Maybe another day...)
The Nicu nurse practicioner came to us to examine Kyleigh. She appeared healthy and with no cause for concern other than what they'd already seen. They decided to run x rays and remove some of her belly contents to send off to the lab. The lab results would be at least 24 hours, but the x rays were pretty much immediate. She left and shortly after returned with the neonatologist, who we had with Micah, but didn't remember us right away. They explained that the x ray showed pneumatosis. (We weren't at all familiar with this diagnosis...) They explained that the the bowel was likely infected and the lining had cysts in the wall. This however, had nothing to do with the vomiting blood. However, she didn't appear sick, and that infants with pneumatosis typically appear very ill... They also explained that in this neonatologists 12 years of practice, he'd almost never seen a full term infant with this condition. Things really didn't add up. The protocol for the pneumatosis was 7 days of no food and antibiotics, and obviously she needed to go to the Nicu right away.
And I LOST it.
I almost never lose it. Sometimes with medical things I get visibly frustrated or a little teary eyed, but I hadn't lost it since they day Micah was born, when they told me they had to send me to a different hospital after he was born, and that I wouldn't get to see him for at least a day. (That was not the plan).
Poor doctor, LOL.. I sobbed and sobbed and tried to spit out that we'd been through this all before and this was my HEALTHY baby... that i had one already one with a feeding tube... (of course there was a big logical gap between where she was and a feeding tube, but no one was going to try to reason with me.)
They gave us about a half an hour or an hour with her before they whisked her away. My recovery time was over, all 24 hours of it. That beat Micah's 18 hours i was separated from him. You don't realize how nice it is to lay in bed and have your baby handed to you... to pass the baby around with family (and we were glad we'd had a lot of people in the day before).... that was over now.
They put a huge tube in her nose (a 10 fr!) to drain the contents of her stomach, since they were still having blood coming out (and it came out for a few days). Blood in the tummy is extremely irritating and they wanted to stop her vomiting. At that point she wasn't totally miserable because of no food, since newborns belly's are the size of a marble and they don't really need anything for the first day or two. She was on i.v. fluids, basically sugar water, so she'd feel more stable and get needed fluids.
We all filed through to see her, and i came and went from the OB floor to the Nicu... They were MUCH closer than Cincy which was nice. What wasn't nice was having to walk past the newborn nursery everytime I went to my room... And hearing the babies crying throughout the night, only to realize it wasn't yours. It was miserable. My OB stopped by that afternoon and caught me in my room... unfortunately she was totally oblivious to what was going on. This poor lady had no idea... She tried SO darn hard for this to all go smoothly, to treat the pregnancy as normal as possible... the whole bit. Of course, i didn't keep it together trying to explain it to her either. She was so sweet and supportive, and reassured me she was in good hands. My delivery nurse stopped by to offer a hug, as did Micah's speech therapist. (who also had no idea what had gone on, poor lady too!)
(Had to change this to the next twelve hours, not up for explaining the next twelve yet... Maybe another day...)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Kyleigh day 4
Pretty much everyday in the nicu has its good moments and bad moments. Her morning x ray showed the pneumatosis was a little worse than yesterday, but not as bad as Friday. She has more blood in her belly than yesterday too. They sent it off to see if it's still my blood or if it's hers... most people vote it's probably hers. They started zantac in case, which seems a really wise move in case there's any slight upper gi bleeding. Her blood levels are good, her h/h are going up, if she had any signifcant bleeding, they'd be going down. The docs are slightly baffled because she acts so well... But the plan is to play it safe and stay w/ the 7 days of antibiotics and no food. They're not resetting our 7 days quite yet, they'll see what tomorrows x-ray says first. She's fiesty and strong and adorable and we can't wait to bring her home.
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