Emotional Rollercoaster - Part 2
Submitted by
Jay on Thu, 01/24/2008 at 2:44pm.
Sorry, I know lots of people have been asking/wondering how Kai is doing, and I haven't had a chance to sit down and update everyone for quite some time. I need to type fast as I've only got about 10-15 minutes before I have to go pickup Mailynn from preschool. It's her 3rd day of school now, and I'll post some pictures that I took on day 1.
So after we thought everything was ok with Kai, which I'm pretty sure it was at the time of the big scare a week ago, he since contracted a bad cold/cough, probably from his older loving caring sister who is always wanting to hold him, kiss him, hug him, and in the process sneeze on him, cough on him, and slobber on him.
On Sunday, he started coughing a bit, and sneezing, but wasn't all that bad. We took him to sacrament meeting and he was really good throughout, just slept mostly. By that night, Lynh had to call the advice nurse hotline to see what we should do, cause his coughing had gotten worse, and he was getting mucusy and couldn't breath very well at times with all the phlegm in his throat. They said as long as he's eating well, pooping and peeing, and doesn't have a fever, to just stay home. They said to bring him in on Monday for a checkup.
So Monday around 1pm, Lynh, Mailynn and baby drove to Palo Alto to the clinic. They checked him out, and he seemed ok, just cold symptoms, so they sent everyone home and said to just call if he ever got a fever. Well, sure enough Monday night he got a fever of 100.6, so Lynh called advice nurse, and they said we should bring him into the hospital. It was now around 11:30pm and Mailynn was already asleep, so we called Lynh's sister Thao who graciously woke up and came over to watch Mailynn while mom, dad and baby drove to the hospital. The nurse told us to go straight to Lucile Packard, not the ER, so we did.
However, upon arrival we were told we have to go to ER, which is the same building, just different entrances, and we were hoping to avoid all the germs/sick people in the ER...oh well. So we went to ER and got looked at pretty quickly because Kai is only 2 weeks. They admitted us to the pediatrics section of the ER, where after several long waits, and making sure his vitals were ok, which they were, the doctor took a nose swab to check for influenza amongst other things.
We waited for 1/2 hour for the results to come back, and the news was good/bad. He tested positive for RSV, which you can read about here. The article even mentions california as being hard hit by it this winter. This was good news in that it probably meant he doesn't have anything MORE serious like meningitis, or other worse diseases. It was bad news in that they were going to need to send him over to the NICU right away and it'd probably be at least a 48 hour stay.
So, an hour or so later, after a bed was ready at the NICU, we walked back over to Lucile Packard and Kai was admitted into a warm heater bed crib thingy for sick babies, and hooked up to a million wires. I have a picture of that on my phone, and I'll try to upload that as well, it looked scarier than it really was I think. I sent the picture to a few of the girls in my family and gave them a good scare I think. The NICU at Lucile Packard is truly amazing though, so many great nurses and doctors there, and SOOOO many babies, its mind boggling to see them all. Mostly premies, but we found out there were quite a few other RSV babies as well.
After getting him all hooked up, they told us they wanted to immediately take some blood samples, one from each arm, and also do a lumbar test. Watching them do the lumbar was pretty brutal. They had Kai folded in half face to toes, as the doctor stuck needles in his lower back. He didn't enjoy it too much, plus it took the doctor quite a # of tries to get the fluid. It looked like she was just stabbing him over and over and over and over, and finally changing to a bigger needle. Brutal!
The plan was to immediately put him on antibiotics just in case he had something OTHER than RSV, so they could get a head start on it. The cultures from the blood and lumbar test would take 24-48 hours to tell them if he had anything else.
After he was all done with his pricks and pokes, we finally got to hold him again, and Lynh fed him before we left the hospital and drove back home around 5:30am. Thao was sleeping with Mailynn when we got home, and she went home to get some more sleep before going to work the next day. So all in all about 6 hours at the hospital that first night (monday - tuesday night).
Lynh took a short nap, and woke up around 7:30am and went back to the hospital (about 40 minute drive with no traffic) to feed Kai and be with him. I stayed home so I could take Mailynn to her first day of school (mommy was so sad to miss this big event, and also because she wanted to make sure Mailynn didn't look like a homeless person with uncombed hair on her first day.) I took Mailynn to preschool around 9am, and then came home and tried to get as much work done as possible.
I picked up Mailynn around 2:30, brought her home, fed her, then we both crashed for about 3 hours. Woke up, took her to Thao's house where she just loves to go and play with Thao and "Joe Joe" and Sein, and their dog pebbles. She's never excited to see us when we pick her up from Thao's, cause she never wants to leave. Great babysitters!
I dropped her off and drove to the hospital, met up with Lynh, visited Kai, held him for a while, he looked pretty good, other than a raspy sounding cough. We then went and ate dinner nearby at stanford shopping center, food wasnt great, but oh well. Lynh's eyes were so bloodshot from no sleep and exhaustion, felt bad for her, but there wasn't much she could do, cause she had to be there to feed Kai every few hours, cause she's been unable to pump/store much in bottles.
I left Palo Alto around 10, picked up Mailynn from Thao's and went home, Lynh came home as well to get some sleep, and we did it all again the next day. Lynh going to the hospital early, me doing the preschool/work thing, then picking her up, napping together, then off to Thao's. However, side note, as I was driving out of the preschool parking lot, the driveway entrance/exit (only one of them) had been blocked by a routine traffic stop. So, I kinda just stopped and sat there to see what the cop would do, if he'd realize I was trying to get out and move his car, but he just kinda glared at me, and made a pointing geusture telling me to go back the way I had come. I'm like, ummmmm, hmmm, there is no other exit, and I gotta get outta here. A plumber was supposed to be stopping by my house any minute to look at my SUPER NOISY annoying water heater.
I waited a few minutes, cop didnt budge, so I lean my head, "you want me to backup sir?" "YES!" hmmm, ok. I'm a bit T'd off now. Another parent car comes to pick up their kid and tries to pull into the driveway, but can't, the cop tells them to go away. I was like, "wow, this guy is a real piece of work."
I get out of the car and write down his plate #, drive back to the preschool, ask the teacher there to call 311 and report this cocky cop and tell him to move his car so parents can get in and out. As I drive back, I find that he's finally moved off to one side so we can get by. As I drive by I kinda stare at him as if it say thanks jerk, and he glares back and yells, "DO YOU GOTTA QUESTION!!" in a very rude tone. so i slam on my breaks, roll down my window, "EXCUSE ME??!" ANYHOW.....we argued for a few seconds, and I was off, but i was POd and I'm so tired of dealing with jerky cops in san jose, i have yet to meet a nice normal one.
I grabbed taco bell, rushed home, met up with the plumber, slept, woke up really late, 7:15pm, and rushed off to Thao's house to drop off Mailynn before heading to the hospital again.
This time on the way to Thao's house, a funny thing happened. Mailynn got to ride in Daddy's car (a kinda fast IS350 Lexus), and as I was taking a sharp corner rather fast, Mailynn says from the backseat, "WOW DADDY! YOU DRIVE REALLY GOOD!" I couldn't stop laughing. Her favorite thing to say in the car now is "Go FASTER daddy! Go FASTER!" As I got onto the expressway, she kept on telling me to go faster, but noticed all the cars in our way. She had just watched an episode of Little Einsteins that day where the Rocket Ship went down a mountain weaving between trees, and the kids on the show and the kids at home were supposed to put their arms together and "swoosh" back and forth to avoid all the trees.
So, Mailynn says, "Daddy! Swoosh between the cars!" and puts her arms together and for the next 5 minutes on the expressway is going "Swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh! Say it louder with me daddy! swoosh swoosh swoosh. Do your arms like this daddy! Swoosh swoosh!"
Absolutely hysterical.
Well, I dropped off Mailynn at Thao's visited mom, and found they had moved ALL the RSV babies downstairs into the IICU (intermediate ICU) for kinda recovering babies, and also to isolate the virus away from all the premies. I guess the virus had spread in the NICU amongst some of the babies, and giving an already complicated struggling premy the RSV virus is a really bad thing. So, now they had like 5-6 babies all in a smaller room all with the RSV.
Lynh broke the somewhat bad news to me that Kai's CRP reading was up to 1.3, too high, so now they're afraid he might have a blood infection or some other kinda problem. They would wait another 24 hours, and take another reading tomorrow morning to see if it continues to go up, which would tell us there are some other big problems going on. Lynh was pretty much an emotional wreck hearing that there might be further issues to deal with, and possibly another week in the hospital.
Lynh and I ate a somber dinner once again, and this time Lynh was too exhausted to drive herself home, so I took her in my car, picked up Mailynn close to midnight, and went home. Mailynn got to sleep in mommy and daddy's bed, what a treat. We were all anxious and dreading the upcoming blood test results which would tell us if Kai was getting better or worse.
Now its today, we all got up around 8:30, we took Mailynn to preschool, and then off to Palo Alto again to see Kai. It was a very big day today because of the blood test, so Lynh was feeling nauseous on the way in. Well, I gotta run, so I'll keep this last part brief, the CRP was down!!! They were going to take him off antiobiotics, but because now he has a slightly low white blood cell count, they're going to keep him on it till tomorrow, take ANOTHER blood test (like his 6th one) tomorrow morning, and if all looks ok, there is a chance he'll come home tomorrow!!
So sad, one of the 5 RSV babies got a lot worse and got "demoted" back upstairs to the NICU. Some of them are so much worse than Kai. I feel fortunate to have a son that was born full term with healthy lungs. Those other babies are fighting the virus with lungs and other things that just aren't quite as strong.
On our way out to eat lunch, we stopped by to visit Lynh's grandma whose still in the hospital and still hasnt really woken up from her seizure. We didn't get to see her cause she was undergoing x-rays, but we did see her husband. He's so sad and misses her. He said, "I used to drive everywhere with her in the car, to cache creek, to peoples houses, everywhere i went she was in the car with me, now I just drive alone." Definitely brought a tear to all our cheeks to see him so broken and sad. I just hope he's able to cope with whatever the outcome may be. He's a really nice man.
Now I'm 15 minutes late picking up Mailynn, so I gotta run! Thanks for all of your phone calls, emails, thoughts, prayers, it's great feeling everyones support. Sorry we live so far away! :)
274 reads | 24 comments |
3 votes:
Comments:
Back to top