Close Call

“Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.”
— Turkish Proverb quotes

Tonight was one hell of a close call… we almost lost Ayden. I just got off the phone with mom (Lindsay) and she’s pretty shaken… normally at this time I get a phone call something to the effect of “he was fussy, but he ate… I changed his diaper and he’s sleeping now” but tonight Lindsay was in tears.. and she started telling me about how she went in for her regular feed at 5. Ayden was lying on his back sleeping when she arrived.  Mom changed his diaper, took his temperature and then was getting ready to breast feed him…all of a sudden, Ayden stuck his tongue out (and it was covered in milk). The problem was that he would not put his tongue back and looked like he was choking. His face turned red, then blue…. Mom quickly called for the nurse… she came over and quickly started to get Ayden to breath by patting his back and rubbing him…he did not respond to this so she put some oxygen in front of his nose to get him to breath it in…that didn’t work either…so the nurse took a suctioning tube and started to suction in his nose and mouth.. he seemed to be congested…the nurse got a little bit of phlegm out, but she listened at his chest and the one side sounded raspy. He repeated this coughing and choking and was still blue and all his levels dropped super low, heart rate, oxygen and breaths per minute…they suctioned so much it gave him a bloody nose. All the while Mom was either holding him while the nurse did this or she was holding his hand to make sure he knew that she was there…Then they called the doctor. The doctor did her assessment and decided she wanted to give him a chest xray, blood work and an iv.

The xray machine showed up and Mom helped give the xray by positioning Ayden and holding him down so he would not move…(all the while his level were still low)….they too two xrays and then that was done.

Then Amy (our favorite nurse) came in to take some blood and get the iv going. The problem with a preemie is that they don’t have a lot of blood so it’s hard to get any. They started off by taking the blood from a vein in his head, then his hand and then his heal. He also has an IV in his left hand now too…
She said that she was working tomorrow and would be by to check on him.

Mom left the hospital when she saw that Ayden was stable…she is exhausted…

Mom and I called tonight at 10 for an update. Apparently he has a low white blood count so they are putting him on some antibiotics and also he is going back into an incubator to protect him….the xrays were looked over by a resident doctor who did not see anything, but the xrays will be checked again tomorrow by a specialist. As for the rest of the blood work, it will take a bit to get back…so hopefully we will have more results tomorrow.

On the plus side, Ayden did gain 50 grams and is now up to 2776 (6 pounds 1 ounce) and that shows that the breastfeeding is going well…

The nurse also told us that Ayden was resting comfortably with his soother.

we will update more tomorrow.