Garrett Michael Klein was born Thursday, November 12 at 7 pounds, 19.5 inches long. He was healthy and beautiful with dark hair like his mom and a hint of brown around his pupils, making us guess that he'll have more of my coloring instead of Chris and Jonathan's blond hair and blue eyes. He even seemed like a good little eater from the start. Maybe that's just easier the second time around.
He had good Apgar scores of 9 and 10, and the hospital stay was uneventful (he had what sounded to us like odd breathing intermittently, but nothing the care providers seemed concerned about), and we went home Saturday afternoon. Later Saturday, Grandma Pam thought his breathing seemed rapid, but as we watched it, it appeared to even out. By 4 a.m. Sunday morning, however, we'd seen enough throughout the night that we brought him into the ER in Wabasha to be evaluated.
The ER doctor, Dr. Baines, said his color, muscle tone, reflexes, etc., all looked good and that his respirations were within the normal range. He ordered a chest X-ray to check out his lungs just to be on the safe side, and even had a radiologist look at it, but they thought that looked fine as well. We got home around 6 a.m., fed Garrett and tried to get a little more sleep. After 7, he seemed to fuss as you would expect any newborn to on his first morning home. Chris calmed him down a few times, and by 8:15, I figured he probably wanted to eat again, but he wouldn't eat.
His breathing still sounded odd to us, but we had just been to the ER and were reassured that he looked good and the breathing abnormalities were probably due to some amniotic fluid still getting worked out of the lungs. With the odd breathing, it almost sounded like he wanted to burp, and I wondered if he wasn't eating due to that. Although I managed to get a couple burps out, there wasn't very much. I kept trying to feed him throughout the morning, more persistently as time went on, but he just wasn't interested. He seemed to gradually become more lethargic, too, but it was hard to know whether he might just be tired from me pestering him to eat so much. By 12:45, I called the nurses station in Wabasha for advice and they said to bring him into the ER again.
Dr. Baines was still there, and he was alarmed at the change in Garrett's color and responsiveness since just that morning. A whole team of people quickly descended on our three-day-old son and started drawing blood, hooking up wires and monitors, placing an air mask, and trying to place an IV, without success, and resorting to drilling a hole into his bone marrow to administer emergency fluids. Little Garrett, pulling at the air mask, was too weak and dehydrated to even cry, but still squeaked his objections with each breath -- at which point my own senses started shutting down and it seemed my spirit jumped ship and left my body.
We don't understand how he could have appeared fine just hours earlier that morning. (He probably wasn't fine, but how could the care providers at the hospital before discharge and in the ER miss whatever this was?) They weren't sure now whether it might be an infection or possibly improper closing of the heart valves, but it was serious and they had him airlifted to Saint Marys' PICU. We found rides and took off right away, knowing that Mayo One typically beats folks back to Rochester, but we actually got there just before them, as they had taken some time to stabilize Garrett in Wabasha before lifting off again -- including placing him on a ventillator, most likely without sedation or anything for the pain before intubating him because his condition was so critical.
At the PICU, they first ruled out heart valves being the problem and are now working on determining whether an infection or metabolic disorder needs to be treated. In case it is an infection, he's already on antibiotics, but he'll still be in the PICU for at least a few days. We came home last night to try to get some sleep and pack some things before heading in again this morning. Grandma Pam is going to help with Jonathan today, so we can spend some time with him as well, as I haven't seen much of him since Garrett was born. Then Chris will probably try to keep some normalcy with Jonathan at home while I stay in
I'm not sure what the best case scenario is right now. It sounds like an infection would be the most straightforward to treat. With whatever was going on (I don't understand most of it -- blood sugar was critically low, electrolytes are off, blood is acidic ...) Chris and I are concerned about any long-term health consequences he might have to deal with, even when the source is treated. One of the doctors in the PICU said babies this young have so much "development pending" that they can bounce back as if nothing ever happened. Obviously, there are no guarantees, but that's what we're praying for.
I'll post updates when we have them. In the mean time, any prayers that could be sent our way would be much appreciated.
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