Truth Be Told...: February 2, 2012

I can't believe it was one month ago today that I found myself trying to calm a cranky baby. Natalie wasn’t herself the entire day. A baby who only cries if she’s overly hungry or overly tired. She cried the entire day. If she wasn’t asleep, she was crying.

I’m. Not. Kidding.

Every Thursday, we go to my parents for dinner, EVERY Thursday. I wasn’t planning on going because Natalie had been so fussy, but since she awoke at 5:30pm from a 3.5 hour nap, I figured she had plenty of energy to stay awake till 7:30. She was actually not crying when she woke up. Ben came home and she gave him a few smiles. I thought, “This is GREAT! She must being feeling better.” I let her spend some time with her daddy while I decompressed and packed her dinner prior to heading to my parents.

By the time we arrived at my parents house (which is next door to ours) Natalie had slipped into her fussy mode, again. Her breathing was erratic and it frightened me. My first thought was “shit, she’s having cardiac issues. She’s shunting.” I tried to calm myself and think of other signs to look for. I needed more evidence to back up my theory before I whisked her off to the ER. In my head: “Think Shawn, THINK.” I remembered that I needed to count her respirations; she was at 60 breaths per minute. A child her age should be around 30 at the highest…check. The next thing I noticed was her grunting. The best way I can describe it, it was as if she was straining to poop, but her ab muscles were not engaging…so it was obvious she was not trying to poop. The third and final piece of evidence was when her extremities, lips and gums turned purple. I freaked. I ran home to pack a bag and call the pediatrician to confirm my fears. Thank goodness the on-call pediatrician was Natalie’s actual doctor. I could hear the fear and panic in her voice, that’s when I knew I wasn’t an overacting mom. She suggested calling 911, but I convinced her that I was capable of driving Natalie to the ER; and that as long as she called the ER to notify them of our impending arrival, I would be forever grateful…she obliged.

Upon our arrival, they took us right back to a Triage room. Natalie’s O2 was at 92 on room air and she had a fever of 101.8 (she had no fever when we left home 20mins earlier). The nurse gave her Motrin and escorted us to an ER room. Almost immediately we had a doctor and a respiratory therapist in our room. By this point her fever had reached 102.4. Seeing as we had just been to the ER one-week prior for croup, the doctor was baffled by Natalie’s downward spiral. She ordered another set of x-rays and blood work. First up, x-ray…Natalie was so exhausted and lethargic, she barely put up a fight. By the time we walked the 20 yards from x-ray to Natalie’s ER room, the doctor was waiting to tell me that Natalie had pneumonia. They wanted to get an IV started and run some labs. I despise IV’s. I’m a hard stick and so is Natalie! The IV team arrives and they looked for 20mins to find a decent vein. They began the IV process and that’s when Natalie’s 02 dropped to 88-89. We masked her and she received O2 support till the IV team was finished. She bounced back to her new norm of 92. Once she fell asleep, she dropped down to 86 and stayed there…86 isn’t good, she’s typically at 100% and might drop to 96 as a low. The doctor came in and hooked my girl up with her very own nasal cannula. Then she informed me that they were admitting her. I wanted her to go to 2B, the cardiac floor, but she isn’t able to room on that unit since her heart has been repaired. Instead, she received a room on 3E. The staff on this floor was simply amazing!!! Very kind and extremely accommodating! Natalie’s roommate and his family were amazing in their own sense…amazingly stupid!

My mom was gracious enough to stay with us during our three-night stay at Hotel DuPont, in a reclining chair, nonetheless. I am so grateful for her support! I’m not sure if she realized what a calming effect she had on me during that stay. On our first night in our room, I tried to lay down and rest. Unfortunately, Natalie was restless. She was exhausted but I think she knew she wasn’t in her own crib. I worried that she would bang her head into the rails (something that is not an issue at home, because she has a bumper pad). Another issue with sleeping in the same room as your baby, every time she moved or made a sound I jumped up to see what was wrong. Once I finally was able to settle myself and was just about to drift off…In walks Natalie’s roommates mom and grandmother. What a dynamic duo these two were! Hopefully you followed my FaceBook posts last month, because I’m not going into too much detail about the Billies from Bridgeville. They came in at 2am with suitcases and stroller in tow. My mother and I had the pleasure of hearing the entire life history of the roommates (he was 4mos old at the time) baby mama & daddy drama, the woes of the grandmother (she is on disability/SSI)…and it went on and on and on. My mom and I had front and center seats for a live, 3-day episode of teen mom.

Somewhere around 5am, Natalie’s nurse came in to inform us that Respiratory Therapy would be coming in to place her on Vapo-therm (a high flow oxygen therapy). The regular O2 wasn’t cutting it for her. Even though her numbers looked good, she was still struggling to breath and continued to have high respirations. I’m not sure if I blocked out this process, forgot it all together due to sheer exhaustion or if I stepped out of the room while they set her up…either way, I don’t recall any of it except for when I asked them the move the system to the other side of her bed so that I could hold & rock her.

The next day (Friday) people were in and out of her room. It was like a revolving door. It didn’t help that her roommate had a different team than we did, so every time we got settled Natalie’s roommate would end up having some a nurse, doctor, respiratory therapist or social worker stopping in. It was frustrating! One thing that was nice, Ben came up to the hospital to relieve my mom and I so we could go home, shower and pack a change of clothes (seeing as we were told Natalie would be there till at least Monday).

Saturday was pretty much the same as Friday, minus a time-out of the hospital. The roommates & the drama kept us quite entertained! Natalie did start to eat a little bit of her rice cereal and pureed fruits Saturday at lunch. By the time evening rolled around she was smiling, happy and kicking her legs and feet…so much so, that she kicked her IV out. The nurse called the doctor, who wanted to establish another IV…Fan-freaking-tastic!! IV team rolls in and I inform them that she is a difficult stick. Then I escort myself to the kitchen to wash and sterilize her dirty bottles from the day. I come back from my ventures and they are still working on her. I tagged my mom out of the game and took over her job of holding down one or possibly two of Natalie’s appendages. 15mins later an IV is in. 45mins after that…it was out! When the nurse came in I looked at her with my frazzeled self and said “no more! If the doctor wants the IV team in here again, you tell her I said no and she can come talk to me. I want to switch Natalie over to oral antibiotics. I’m done and so is she!” For the record, I think my mom was done too. It’s extremely exhausting to have a little one screaming from pain, especially when you know just how painful the pain actually is! Turned out Saturday night was a big night of change for little Miss Nat. She ditched her IV (twice), switched over to oral antibiotics AND she came off of Vapo-therm & switched to regular O2. Natalie did well, she even maintained fantastic oxygen levels that night while she slept!

The next morning when her nurse practitioner arrived, my mom and I convinced her to let Natalie go home. Natalie had to pass one test and that was to maintain 95% (or higher) O2 levels, while napping. My girl passed that test with her morning nap!! And by 3pm we were packing our bags and signing discharge papers.

That was one hell of a crazy & exhausting weekend. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the following photos of our stay!

In the ER, after IV and nasal canula. She was being combative and pulling at her O2 tubing
so she became the proud owner of a set of "no-no's". See her arms?? lol.