and gasping for air, so we took her into the emergency room. They did
a chest xray and a few other things, she had 2 of her episodes while
we were there and the Dr. determined it was probably just reflux. We
kept her upright for 30 minutes after each feeding and inclined her
crib. She slept really good through the night and was normal on
Wednesday just a little sleepy. We followed up with her doctor that
afternoon at around 4:00.
We all agreed that reflux sounded like the answer and decided to take
the non-medicated approach. After we left the clinic, we went to the
park so Mylee could play while I fed Tahlia. It was really windy so
Chris was carrying her to the car so I could feed her there and
Tahlia started gagging and throwing up blood. We ran to the car after
determining that it would be faster to drive than to wait for an
ambulance (got lectured for that, but i still think it was the right
choice). I even called ahead to 911 to let them know we were on our
way (of course the registration people didn't take me seriously and it
took us several minutes to get into the back room, luckily the nurse
took one look at her and yelled for a doctor) all of a sudden there
were 5 people in the room with her. They ran a bunch of tests and
called ahead to Marshfield. Because of her age they had to helicopter
her to Marshfield. We got Mylee settled with Cassie for the night and
headed to Marshfield to be with Tahlia.
At Marshfield they ran a bunch of tests, nothing really came back
unusual. They began treatment for bacterial Pneumonia (caused by
aspirating into her lungs from her vomiting issues) because that is
what appeared on her lungs from the xray at Rice Lake. Her blood
levels dropped a bit, but they were 90% sure at the time it was
because of all of the fluids and antibiotics they were pumping into
her tiny little body. They watched her all day Thursday (she had one
episode where her oxygen levels dropped really low), we met with the
GI Doctor, and he decided to probe her upper GI tract to check for
blood. That happened on Friday. The GI guy didn't find anything
unusual and no blood in her system (good news). So after that they
were ready to move us to regular PEDS and out of the PICU. Well
Tahlia had other plans. In a period of 2 hours she had 3
gagging/breathing episodes similar to Tuesday night. One of these was
witnessed by a nurse. While these were happening her oxygen levels
dropped really low again. So we spent another night in the PICU.
Saturday was a good day, no more episodes, blood levels went back up,
they took her IV's out and continued the antibiotics orally. Thought
maybe we could go home on Sunday. We met with a different doctor on
Sunday who went over a few things with us. Her xrays finally made it
to radiology (apparently she wasn't urgent) and the radiologist
believed that she didn't have an infection, but instead that her lung
had collapsed during all of her breathing episodes. This could
partially explain the vomiting up blood, but still none of this should
have happened. They were also now concerned about her weight. She
was up to 8lbs 10 ounces, and was down to a little over 8lbs 5 ounces
(she was born at 8 lbs 2 ounces) so we earned another night in the
hospital to see if her weight went up by Monday. They also had us
meet with a lady to learn infant CPR.
So Monday came and we thought for sure we could go home. But Tahlia
is apparently comfortable here. Her weight dropped AGAIN (Ugh--she
eats ALLLLLLLLLL day long). So now we have to stay 2 more days (until
her weight goes up). So today we are bottle feeding her and
monitoring her intake and out put (there's a lot of both happening) so
hopefully her weight goes up and we will be home by Wednesday!
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers, means a lot to us!!! Maybe
next week will be a normal week.
