After 4 days... Micah is home!
Wow... I just have to start out by saying that I have NEVER been so scared in my LIFE. Really.
Ok...so... Micah was discharged from the hospital yesterday late afternoon. He's doing well aside from being really fussy and exhausted. Here is what they think may have happened, though the doctors admit it's a "far fetched" explanation:
I'm going to start from the beginning. Micah started getting sick about 3 weeks ago (around March 5th). About a week later he was diagnosed with pneumonia and a HORRIBLE ear infection (March 12th I think) and given a shot of Rocefin in the office, followed by prescriptions for Augmentin, neb treatments, and ear drops. After being on all of those meds for a week we thought he was getting better. He hadn't been acting that sick at all, and wasn't even coughing much. So Monday March 19th we went in for another follow up. He had a low-grade fever (99.8) and his ear and chest still didn't look/sound good, so the doctor ordered two more weeks of the same meds. The following evening, Tuesday evening (March 20), Micah developed a fever of 102.5. I called the doctor because I was concerned that he had a fever even though he was currently taking one antibiotic and had received the shot of the other antibiotic. The doctor said "don't worry, if he's already on antibiotics then he's covered. Unless it's a virus." Apparently those were the key words!
Wednesday afternoon, around 2pm, we were in the play room and I noticed that his fingernail beds were slightly blue. I kept feeling his hands thinking maybe he was just cold, but they were warm. Then his lips started turning blue. Same thing... I kept thinking he was cold. After about 5 minutes of that he started to really get blue... it was progressing up his hands and now it was around his lips. I ran upstairs with him and sat him in the chair to do a nebulizer treatment (because it would help open up his airway). At the same time I called my sister and while I was on the phone with her he got more and more blue until his hands were completely blue and his face was blue and grey. My sister said to hang up and call 911, so I did... and then called my neighbor Christine. Christine ran over and sat with Micah while I got things ready for the hospital. Micah was fading in and out so she worked at keeping him awake/responsive. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the rescue squad came. The put a face mask on him with oxygen and off we went to the hospital (by the way, the paramedics were calling him a "blueberry".) By the time we got to the hospital he was pink again, but his temp was 105.1 (and just to re-cap his other vitals were sky high as well). In my 7 years of nursing, I have NEVER seen a temp that high! He was SO hot. They tried 5 times to get a line in him, and finally had to start it in his foot. They drew blood cultures, labs, and did a chest x-ray. They showed us the x-ray and said that he had "retro-cardiac pneumonia". Then we were sent by ambulance to a bigger hospital (because the one we were at was a small community hospital).
For 3 nights we were there, and Micah was still really sick for the first 2 nights. He was still having fevers, but the GOOD thing was that his oxygen saturation never dropped, so he didn’t' turn blue again. More tests were done including a 12-lead EKG and an Echo-cardiogram of his heart. Both were normal (THANK GOD!). Then, Saturday afternoon, after 24 hours of being fever free, he was discharged.
The doctors still aren't sure what happened. The doctors at the second hospital think that the x-rays were just blurry from the first hospital and that he never actually had the "retro-cardiac pneumonia" that the first hospital said he had. We had his primary group, the Infectious Disease doctor, and a bunch of residents following him, and the general consensus came to be... (and here is where the "far-fetched" explanation comes in)... They think that while he was recovering from the pneumonia he caught a virus... since his immune system was already low from being so sick for a couple of weeks he was REALLY susceptible to it. The virus caused his fever to skyrocket so rapidly (like within an hour or two) that he vaso-constricted (meaning that his blood vessels clamped down) causing him to become cyanotic.
That's it. That's all we know. We are going to consult with a pulmonoligist to have him check for Asthma and see if that was a contributing factor or not. We also want to have him allergy tested... just because at this point I want him tested for EVERYTHING.
Last night I was too scared to let him sleep in his room, so he slept with us. I just really wish I knew why he got so sick and cyanotic. Scary scary scary.
Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes... our support network is amazing, and we are truly blessed to have such great friends and family.
Ok...so... Micah was discharged from the hospital yesterday late afternoon. He's doing well aside from being really fussy and exhausted. Here is what they think may have happened, though the doctors admit it's a "far fetched" explanation:
I'm going to start from the beginning. Micah started getting sick about 3 weeks ago (around March 5th). About a week later he was diagnosed with pneumonia and a HORRIBLE ear infection (March 12th I think) and given a shot of Rocefin in the office, followed by prescriptions for Augmentin, neb treatments, and ear drops. After being on all of those meds for a week we thought he was getting better. He hadn't been acting that sick at all, and wasn't even coughing much. So Monday March 19th we went in for another follow up. He had a low-grade fever (99.8) and his ear and chest still didn't look/sound good, so the doctor ordered two more weeks of the same meds. The following evening, Tuesday evening (March 20), Micah developed a fever of 102.5. I called the doctor because I was concerned that he had a fever even though he was currently taking one antibiotic and had received the shot of the other antibiotic. The doctor said "don't worry, if he's already on antibiotics then he's covered. Unless it's a virus." Apparently those were the key words!
Wednesday afternoon, around 2pm, we were in the play room and I noticed that his fingernail beds were slightly blue. I kept feeling his hands thinking maybe he was just cold, but they were warm. Then his lips started turning blue. Same thing... I kept thinking he was cold. After about 5 minutes of that he started to really get blue... it was progressing up his hands and now it was around his lips. I ran upstairs with him and sat him in the chair to do a nebulizer treatment (because it would help open up his airway). At the same time I called my sister and while I was on the phone with her he got more and more blue until his hands were completely blue and his face was blue and grey. My sister said to hang up and call 911, so I did... and then called my neighbor Christine. Christine ran over and sat with Micah while I got things ready for the hospital. Micah was fading in and out so she worked at keeping him awake/responsive. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the rescue squad came. The put a face mask on him with oxygen and off we went to the hospital (by the way, the paramedics were calling him a "blueberry".) By the time we got to the hospital he was pink again, but his temp was 105.1 (and just to re-cap his other vitals were sky high as well). In my 7 years of nursing, I have NEVER seen a temp that high! He was SO hot. They tried 5 times to get a line in him, and finally had to start it in his foot. They drew blood cultures, labs, and did a chest x-ray. They showed us the x-ray and said that he had "retro-cardiac pneumonia". Then we were sent by ambulance to a bigger hospital (because the one we were at was a small community hospital).
For 3 nights we were there, and Micah was still really sick for the first 2 nights. He was still having fevers, but the GOOD thing was that his oxygen saturation never dropped, so he didn’t' turn blue again. More tests were done including a 12-lead EKG and an Echo-cardiogram of his heart. Both were normal (THANK GOD!). Then, Saturday afternoon, after 24 hours of being fever free, he was discharged.
The doctors still aren't sure what happened. The doctors at the second hospital think that the x-rays were just blurry from the first hospital and that he never actually had the "retro-cardiac pneumonia" that the first hospital said he had. We had his primary group, the Infectious Disease doctor, and a bunch of residents following him, and the general consensus came to be... (and here is where the "far-fetched" explanation comes in)... They think that while he was recovering from the pneumonia he caught a virus... since his immune system was already low from being so sick for a couple of weeks he was REALLY susceptible to it. The virus caused his fever to skyrocket so rapidly (like within an hour or two) that he vaso-constricted (meaning that his blood vessels clamped down) causing him to become cyanotic.
That's it. That's all we know. We are going to consult with a pulmonoligist to have him check for Asthma and see if that was a contributing factor or not. We also want to have him allergy tested... just because at this point I want him tested for EVERYTHING.
Last night I was too scared to let him sleep in his room, so he slept with us. I just really wish I knew why he got so sick and cyanotic. Scary scary scary.
Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes... our support network is amazing, and we are truly blessed to have such great friends and family.
posted by Ryan | 3/25/2007 11:13:00 AM
3 Comments:
I'm so sorry you all went through that but I am so thankful that he is okay.
Ryan, this is truly frightening. Poor Micah that he had to experience this - and how hard for you all! Sending prayers your way that he is truly over whatever caused this, and that he gets better SOON!
Just checking in to see if all is well?
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