i had an every mothers nightmare experience with my little brixley. two thursday's ago on the 15th, my one month old baby was up at 2 am eating. it was not a normal feeding. brixley seemed uncomfortable and was fussy. after not eating much he threw up everything. i figured he had a stomach flew and would now feel better. well he didn't. all morning and day he barely ate and threw up after every feeding. i knew this was not normal so i called the pediatrician and i was going to take him in friday morning. i worried about him all day thursday and by 6 pm he was not getting better. his breathing had started to seem weird and i was debating whether to take him to the er. john got home that night about 8:30 and was holding brixley. he noticed his breathing was off too so we decided to take him in. i didn't want to have him sick through the night again while i waited to take him to the doctor in the morning.
at the er, the doctor said because he was so little they would test him for everything so we could find out what was causing his throwing up and shortness of breathe. they took his urine, his blood, and took chest xrays. if the xrays didn't show anything then they would have to do a spinal tap in his back.... the xrays came back and the doctor found that he could have pnemonia or possibly a diaphramatic hernia (dh). before he could explain to us what that was, i told him i had a dh when i was born (i was born with one and nearly died but had surgery 4 hours after being born to fix it a dh is a whole in your diaphram which allows your intestines to go up and affects your lungs which makes you cant breathe). immediately he said then that he was sure that is what brixley had. i was so shocked. i didn't even know that was genetic. apparently it is. the doctor had already called the children's hospital in dallas because they have a pediatric surgeon and that is what we needed. they told us brixley would be ambulenced to dallas. still shocked we made phone calls and got the other kids taken care of while we went for a journey to dallas. john left the hospital to go get us clothes and then met us at the children's hospital. i stayed with brixley to ride with him and waited to be transported. in the meantime my mom and dad came to the er and my dad gave brixley a blessing before we left.
we left at 12:30 am and it was the worst ride to dallas ever. it was bumpy, uncomfortable, i couldn't sleep, and i was so worried about my baby. here is a picture of him in the ambulence.
it hurts me still to see him like this and have to feel for him. he slept most of the way but whined every once in a while which was comforting to me to know he was still alive because i was scared. about 10 minutes away from the hospital the ambulence pulled over to check on brixley because his oxygen level went down. he was more pale and was breathing horrible. they put on the sirens and rushed the rest of the way. of course i am barely holding it together as we got there at around 2:15 am and the paramedic walked us in. the er had no clue where we came from but when they saw my poor baby, with no color, and hardly breathing they took him into the room and a doctor immediately started working on him. he asked me questions regarding what he had and where we came from. he then called for the critical care unit and within about 15 seconds, like ten doctors came rushing in. i totally lost it and just stood there balling not knowing whether my baby was going to live. a few minutes later the icu people from upstairs came down because they were expecting brixley. they had all the info from our er and the xrays and stuff. so now that everyone knew what was going on, i was still crying, had people trying to get my information, and i waited 20 minutes for john to arrive. the doctor had informed me he was going to put a tube down his mouth and take over his breathing for him. john finally got there and i was so disfunctional, i couldn't tell him what was going on... plus i didn't know much of his condition at this point. john looked in the room, saw brixley, then turned to me and said it doesn't look good. we just stood in the hallway crying. then a social worker comes and starts consuling us. so now we are real frieked out waiting for bad news. after some time the doctor finally comes to tell us they are moving him to the icu. his condition was not good but he was stable. watching them role him past us was another vision that was so hard to see. he was covered with a blanket but i saw his face and it was sad.
on the way upstairs they told us we would wait in the waiting room until they had brixley moved over and after the surgeon looked at him to decide what to do next. so we sat in silence waiting, still shocked that this was happening. in my mind i kept thinking, what if i had not took him in, what would have happened. and as hard as it was to not think about that, i had to remind myself that john and i had the inspiration to take him to the er and that he would be ok. at about 3:30 am, the nurse and surgeon came out and talked to us. brixley was improving and doing okay. he would have surgery to repair the hernia when he was in great condition. finally, we were a little at ease as we got the good news. we were able to go back in the room with brixley and be with him. we didn't sleep at all and now it was a waiting game. in the morning the surgeon came to see him. he was doing much much better and they scheduled his surgery for that day at noon. before the surgery john gave him a blessing, and again i cried as they rolled him away. i knew he would be okay but it was still hard. i got two phone calls during the 3 1/2 hours he was gone that everything was fine and brixley was doing great. when he came back to the room i felt okay taking a picture of him at this time. it is still a sad sight but it is the start of his recovery...
friday night, saturday, and sunday we waited around and watched as he grew stronger and stronger. through this time brixley was being weaned off the oxygen and breathing more on his own. sunday night was a big step. they took the tube out of his mouth, put a little oxygen through his nose and we were able to hold him for the first time since thursday night. in those days, he went from pale to more pink, he was swollen to being able to open his eyes, and he laid there helplessly to being awake and moving a bit more.
monday morning i was able to feed him and he was hungry. he was awake and alert most of the day and had his health improving so greatly. monday night they took out his chest tube. this was the last big step. now he was being watched to make sure he was eating, pooping, and breathing correctly. all his xrays from after the surgery were great and he was healing quickly.
tuesday morning we were moved out of the icu to the surgery floor. here i was able to feed and take care of brixley like normal. here he is off of all tubes and iv's.
we went home wednesday afternoon and it was so nice to be home. it's so strange how brixley went from healthy to sick literally overnight. and then from the er to dallas he went from sick to almost not living. he is our little miracle. the nurses and doctors cant believe he had been healthy from birth for a whole month with having a dh. and he recovered so well and quickly. but i know i am blessed to have brixley still here and healthy. he is still getting back to a normal routine since we've been home but i know he may still not feel 100%. we are so glad to be home and thank all those who prayed for brixley.
home and happy with his brothers and sister
