Wow it is hard to believe it has been so long, but 15 months ago we finally got to bring Dawson home. I don't know if it as such a hard winter for us with Mikes accident or how sick Dawson was or if I am just nuts but I just can't shake the feeling that I am just waiting for the other shoe to fall. My wonderful Dr. calls it P.T.S.D. and recommended therapy so you all are it.
So here is Dawson's story I was admitted to FMC on February 27, 2007 for bed rest at 37 weeks due to high blood pressure and puppps. No luck in getting my numbers down so Wednesday morning they started the induction and Friday afternoon we had a baby, immediately we all knew something was wrong our beautiful little baby just laid there making the scariest noises, the N.I.C.U. team that was there immediately grabbed him put him in the warmer and started oxygen and he was rushed to the N.I.C.U. with severe respiratory distress.
After a few hours I was finally allowed to go down to see him, he looked so strange laying there prone under what looked just like a cake saver(oxygen hood) I don't know if I was scared or worried or just numb, after all it had been only two months before that, that they had let me into see Mike in the I.C.U. after surgery. It was so easy to believe them when they told us that they were just going to watch him for a little while( I now know that he was in transition) and that he would likely be fine and he would be moved up to my room sometime later that night.
That never happened, the very nice and sympathetic nurses put me in a room far away from the other new moms and crying babies(ours didn't cry for 5 days) and left me to settle in when I started to hemorrhage. My poor nurse was new to the floor and looked at me standing there with blood pooling at my feet gave me a towel and told me she needed to talk with the charge nurse, I never saw her again, so back comes the Dr. who asked if there was any other tricks me and mine would like to pull(her husband was one of Mikes surgeons) and calmly stood on my stomach and gave me a few tablets to stop the bleeding and no you don't take them orally. Everything was looking good so about 10'clock Mike left to go home to the kids who were with my mom, and I went to sleep.
You always hear about all the troubles with midnight, the witching hour and all of that, I now think it is true, I was awaken by that strange feeling you get when someone is watching you, to find my new nurse, the pediatrician, the N.I.C.U. Dr. and the hospital chaplain(yes they really do have them) standing next to my bed telling me that they had just intubated my baby and were placing central lines, and was I fine with that? and then they all just filed out and left me to go back to sleep, it was the weirdest feeling they all just acted like that was normal and that I shouldn't worry and I would be able to see him in the morning(I couldn't leave the bed due to my little bleeding problem). Well it wasn't a nightmare or even a bad dream because when I woke up I discovered the sad truth; my baby would never be coming up stairs, some mean nurse had came in while I slept and taken out the bassinet and even the pack of newborn diapers that had been sitting out for him.
Oh my baby was beautiful in a gloomy pale way. When I went down to see him they were still trying to get him stable, he was being treated for pulmonary hypertension, sepsis and possible pneumonia with unstable blood pressures of 48/33 and still didn't have a name. The N.I.C.U. staff was amazing the rushed me into a rocking chair and let me sit by his side all day long telling me everything the were doing to him laughing at his size and amazed at his will to fight(with babies this sick you don't get percentages you get live or die), and hounding us for a name. Our Bishop came that night and he and Mike gave him a blessing, and a name Dawson McKowen. Oh the nurses were so excited and quickly hung his name above him and informed us he looked just like a Dawson.
Sunday I awoke and finally cried and I mean sobbing on the end of the bed in a strange huddled heap with a very happy nurse holding on to me telling me that now that I had cried I could go home(my Dr. thinks she's a therapist), Home! I didn't want to go home my baby was here you idiot. But I had four little ones at home that needed their mommy too, and someone to pack their clothes for Disneyland(thanks G-ma Kelli and Brooke). So after a nice visit with our cutie I came home to see them off and to cuddle my new electric baby, aka; breast pump.
Monday Mike and I arrived to find that they now knew what was wrong with our baby and the appropriate drugs had been started. And that they now felt he would make it and get to come home in about 8-10 days. Dawson then proved to be a little shit as they weaned him from sedation he pulled his ventilator out set his apnea monitors off on a regular basis and wet through his diapers daily and was a very tough stick in the last few days he was there his I.V. was placed in his forehead. On day five he was taken off his ventilator and only on oxygen assistance with his cannula's hooked on by Velcro stuck on to his puppy dog cheeks.
So here is Dawson's story I was admitted to FMC on February 27, 2007 for bed rest at 37 weeks due to high blood pressure and puppps. No luck in getting my numbers down so Wednesday morning they started the induction and Friday afternoon we had a baby, immediately we all knew something was wrong our beautiful little baby just laid there making the scariest noises, the N.I.C.U. team that was there immediately grabbed him put him in the warmer and started oxygen and he was rushed to the N.I.C.U. with severe respiratory distress.
After a few hours I was finally allowed to go down to see him, he looked so strange laying there prone under what looked just like a cake saver(oxygen hood) I don't know if I was scared or worried or just numb, after all it had been only two months before that, that they had let me into see Mike in the I.C.U. after surgery. It was so easy to believe them when they told us that they were just going to watch him for a little while( I now know that he was in transition) and that he would likely be fine and he would be moved up to my room sometime later that night.
That never happened, the very nice and sympathetic nurses put me in a room far away from the other new moms and crying babies(ours didn't cry for 5 days) and left me to settle in when I started to hemorrhage. My poor nurse was new to the floor and looked at me standing there with blood pooling at my feet gave me a towel and told me she needed to talk with the charge nurse, I never saw her again, so back comes the Dr. who asked if there was any other tricks me and mine would like to pull(her husband was one of Mikes surgeons) and calmly stood on my stomach and gave me a few tablets to stop the bleeding and no you don't take them orally. Everything was looking good so about 10'clock Mike left to go home to the kids who were with my mom, and I went to sleep.
You always hear about all the troubles with midnight, the witching hour and all of that, I now think it is true, I was awaken by that strange feeling you get when someone is watching you, to find my new nurse, the pediatrician, the N.I.C.U. Dr. and the hospital chaplain(yes they really do have them) standing next to my bed telling me that they had just intubated my baby and were placing central lines, and was I fine with that? and then they all just filed out and left me to go back to sleep, it was the weirdest feeling they all just acted like that was normal and that I shouldn't worry and I would be able to see him in the morning(I couldn't leave the bed due to my little bleeding problem). Well it wasn't a nightmare or even a bad dream because when I woke up I discovered the sad truth; my baby would never be coming up stairs, some mean nurse had came in while I slept and taken out the bassinet and even the pack of newborn diapers that had been sitting out for him.
Oh my baby was beautiful in a gloomy pale way. When I went down to see him they were still trying to get him stable, he was being treated for pulmonary hypertension, sepsis and possible pneumonia with unstable blood pressures of 48/33 and still didn't have a name. The N.I.C.U. staff was amazing the rushed me into a rocking chair and let me sit by his side all day long telling me everything the were doing to him laughing at his size and amazed at his will to fight(with babies this sick you don't get percentages you get live or die), and hounding us for a name. Our Bishop came that night and he and Mike gave him a blessing, and a name Dawson McKowen. Oh the nurses were so excited and quickly hung his name above him and informed us he looked just like a Dawson.
Sunday I awoke and finally cried and I mean sobbing on the end of the bed in a strange huddled heap with a very happy nurse holding on to me telling me that now that I had cried I could go home(my Dr. thinks she's a therapist), Home! I didn't want to go home my baby was here you idiot. But I had four little ones at home that needed their mommy too, and someone to pack their clothes for Disneyland(thanks G-ma Kelli and Brooke). So after a nice visit with our cutie I came home to see them off and to cuddle my new electric baby, aka; breast pump.
Monday Mike and I arrived to find that they now knew what was wrong with our baby and the appropriate drugs had been started. And that they now felt he would make it and get to come home in about 8-10 days. Dawson then proved to be a little shit as they weaned him from sedation he pulled his ventilator out set his apnea monitors off on a regular basis and wet through his diapers daily and was a very tough stick in the last few days he was there his I.V. was placed in his forehead. On day five he was taken off his ventilator and only on oxygen assistance with his cannula's hooked on by Velcro stuck on to his puppy dog cheeks.
Wow how time flew, Not. The N.I.C.U. for all their care is a very scary and somewhat boring place to spend your days. The one exciting very emotional event came on day 6 I finally got to hold my snugly new baby for an entire half hour. Unless you have been denied the feel of your new baby in your arms you will never understand it but it is better than anything else out there.
I spent most of my days sitting next to him in the good rocking chair(you know the nurses like you when they save you the good furniture)reading to him until it happened, the magic question "How would you like to take your baby home tomorrow?" Yee Haa I showed up the next morning ready to dress him for the first time, had passed the CPR class, arranged for oxygen to be brought into the house, had the car seat ready and then mommy gut feeling kicked in I just could not bring myself to take anything into the hospital, so I guess that I shouldn't have been so surprised and disappointed when the really, really, mean Dr. told me that he had failed his hearing test and they were going to keep him for at least 7 more days to treat him for meningitis and they would now be doing a lumbar puncture on him to culture. Then Mrs. well meaning nurse came to tell me that due to his deafness she would set up an appointment with the School for the Deaf in Phoenix, and me, I just sat there holding onto him reading his stories to him and quietly sobbing.
Another 7 days passed, Mikes mom came to help with the other kids, and I was now on a first name basis with at least half of the hospital, when again they told us we could take him home tomorrow, by this time Mike and I just looked at them like "yeah right we've been through this before", but no they said really you can have him home in the morning. So again we loaded up the "coming home outfit" new blankets, tiny little turquoise bear paw bracelet and his car seat and very cautiously walked into the N.I.C.U. only to be met by a nurse who claimed that she couldn't possibly part with him and could we please let her have him, well after a quick hell no we got to bath our precious baby for the first time dress him in his soft blue puppy dog sleeper safely buckle him into his car seat we practically ran out of there(I kept looking back for at least 3 miles) and took our baby home.
Now 15 months later he has passed two hearing tests(he has only a slight delay in his hearing possibly due to all the antibiotics), has us all convinced he is special, has learned to walk which he hates to do, and his favorite person to read to him is still his Mommy.
4 comments:
That is scary. I know exactly how you feel about N.I.C.U. spent 23 days there ourselves. The hardes part was going home without him. I am glad he is better though. He is so cute. You make good kids.
Wow, that is quite a story. I don't think I realized how bad it was for you until I read this. You did have a tough few months, didn't you. He sure is a cutie pie!
Wow! I don't think I knew you had problems with him! Grandma's not the most reliable source anymore! I'm glad he's doing so well - he is a cutie!
Glad he is doing good! They are little fighters thank goodness!
Post a Comment