Wednesday, December 29, 2010

DEC 28 & Dec 29. MASON DEVELOPS A LIFE THREATNING INFECTION


This infection was really taking a toll on Mason. They still didn’t know what type of infection it was but his urine culture did come back positive so we knew where the infection was taking place. The nurse told me that because of his mucous fistula (an opening) he would more than likely constantly get UTI’s and that she would talk to the doctor about having him on an ongoing antibiotic for that. Mason was requiring more help, his blood gases weren’t so good so they had to go up on a setting on his ventilator. He was beginning to become jaundice to the point where he might need to go under the Billi lights. They gave him some medication to try and avoid that. He was now back up o 13 mcg of Dopamine. When we had already gone down to 8, he was also started on a low dose of Epinephrine again as well. These last 2 days Mason has been back and forth and he was making some progress until this damn infection came along.  They also started Mason on a solid dose of Lasix to help with the excess fluid. It was 3 days after Christmas and they had just taken Mason’s little Santa hat off. I helped the nurse change him to a regular hat. We also noticed his head had grown a bit and I realize in the pictures he is changing everyday he’s not only gaining weight but he is changing. Hair is falling off and he is starting to look a little different. He is 3 weeks old tomorrow and I can’t believe it, I still remember the first 24 hours and now we were going on 3 weeks. I had this big illusion that he would make the weight by the end of January and recover February to be home just in time for his due date. He was only about to be 31 weeks gestation so he still had 9 whole weeks till his due date. Although realistically I knew Mason could stay longer than March I got tired of people asking when he would be home so I just always answered “By his due date”. I never realized how bad of a setback an infection could be, Mason could survive all these surgeries and make it through all these days but a fucken infection could come and kill him at any time. From that point on I made sure Mason was protected I personally made sure to tell the nurses to use more precaution and I used much precaution myself. That’s when my addiction to hand sanitizer began, I haven’t been able to put down that bottle since. This would only be one of MANY of Mason’s infection episodes, Regardless of what we did we were in a hospital that was full of these bugs, and any of them could come attack my baby at any given time. I think that was my biggest fear, I needed Mason to start feeds so he could gain some immunity. I was still pumping in hopes that he would start feeding soon, it didn’t seem as it would happen but I had hope. Despite him fighting off an infection and being sedated he managed to wake up. Louis came along so we talked to him; we told him we needed him to be strong and keep fighting and that we would keep doing everything we could to help. We also told him how much he was loved and I held his precious hand as he started into my eyes. This was Dec 28 & 29 and Mason developed a life threatening infection. 




















0 comments:

Post a Comment