ScrumpyDaddy

Posted by Dave

It’s been a while since I posted last. Matt was at home and doing very well for two weeks. (After we got home from the hospital trip referenced in my last post.) He was breathing fine, eating great, and just being a pretty easy-going baby. (Unless he was mad about being hungry; then he was prone to occasionally holding his breath . . . but it wasn’t too bad.)

We had a great Thanksgiving and had family over to our house on Friday after Turkey Day, which was awesome, as well. We got to visit with my brother & SIL, and the kids got to play with their cousins all day. We all had a wonderful time! Matt seemed to keep clogging up his nose that day, though; we had to keep working on him to keep him breathing OK. At Matt’s midnight feeding, he was having some breathing issues and due to that, wouldn’t eat much. It was bad enough that we thought we should take him into the hospital, so I got ready to go, packed him up, and headed to Children’s. We checked in at 1:52AM on Saturday, November 26th. 🙂

They checked him out in the ER, since that is the path to admission at that time of the day, and it turns out, he had a mild fever. But, he is not yet 60 days old, and anytime a baby under 60 days old has a fever, they like to do a full workup to check for bacterial infections. So they took his blood, urine, and attempted to do a spinal tap, but he got pretty mad about being squished up for the spinal and stopped breathing. Fabulous. He recovered quickly, though.

Nonetheless, the primary reason he was there was for his nose, and ENT came to check him out, probably around 7:30AM or so; once primary staff started to show up to the hospital. They determined that there was some scar tissue in one nostril, and I don’t remember what they said about the other one now, but the decision was to get him on the OR schedule to have his nasal passages opened back up and then place the stents back in his nose to facilitate healing, in an attempt to prevent this from happening again.

We had just gotten up to his admission room when the OR called the nurse to say they were ready for him, so we got him down to the OR prep, and into surgery. After that, he was put into the ICU (PICU) for monitoring and recovery. Surgery went well, stents were placed, he was doing OK. (They also did the lumbar puncture for spinal fluid in the OR since he was sedated at that time.)

The results of all the bacteria cultures I mentioned were negative, which is good. No scary infections. There was one more culture they took – it was of mucous the ENT Fellow had pulled out of his nose in the ER; it had some bacteria growing, so they switched up his antibiotic medicine to compensate for that. (He was and will be on antibiotics until the stents are removed due to them being a foreign body, which is why I say “switched.”)

To make this long story shorter, I’ll just say that there was a few days of frustrating fiasco, including Matt being moved to a step-down unit, then back to the PICU, but by Wednesday evening, some things had been seen by the ENT group that finally put us on a positive path. Thursday had some issues again, but by Thursday night, things were going well. Matt is now breathing fairly well, there is a positive plan for progress, and we are finally somewhat satisfied with the status of things with Matt in the PICU.

Some of the meds they were using to try to soften & thin Matt’s crazy-thick mucous irritated his throat, which caused some eating issues, which were later resolved, but then he kicked out his IV that was just being used for maintenance fluids, and in the end, they placed an OG feeding tube (via mouth, down his throat.) We are satisfied with this. He is getting breastmilk via the OG tube, and they are giving him more than he was eating on his own, mainly to make certain he is well hydrated. In addition to that, they have him in a “tent” that is being used for humidification to keep his secretions (mucous) thinned. It gets pretty foggy in there at times, and his hair gets so wet from it, but he is tolerating it well, and it seems to be helping, as the nurses are able to suction his stents effectively, and he is continually breathing fairly well.

He is still in the PICU, and we don’t know yet when they may send him home, but we aren’t in a hurry if it means he’ll be able to breathe. (I don’t know if he’d be sent home with the tent, OG tube, regular suction of the stents required, and so forth . . . and we’d be more comfortable with him in the ICU if he needs constant care like that, even though it is difficult traveling in every day while having two other kids at home plus it being the holiday season and all; but my mom has been absolutely wonderful in helping out at home, especially with watching Zach while Rachel is at the hospital and I’m at work.)

So there you have it – a longish short update on Matt’s current status and what is happening in his world.

Here is a picture of him in his sauna tent taken yesterday (Thursday, Dec. 1) via Rachel’s cell phone: