Thursday, June 26, 2008

Twins update
















Ok, time to post some bad news. Last Friday morning I got a call from Dad. Just the fact that he was calling me in the morning, was enough that I was already expecting bad news when I answered the phone. He told me that Dillon had had an episode in the wee hours that morning, and that Carrie had to rush him to the emergency room. I guess she had been up with Shelby and had just finally gotten her back to sleep when she noticed Dillon looking at her funny. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, his body went limp, and he stopped breathing. So, she picked him up real quick and was able to get him breathing again, then rushed him to the hospital. Since the hospital in Boone isn't really that big and well equipped, they decided to transfer him to Brenner's in Winston-Salem. They ran lots of tests, including a spinal tap and CT scan, trying to figure out what was causing his episodes, but nothing was showing up. They were thinking that acid reflux was the problem. Of course all of us were trying to figure out how that could cause such severe problems.

Luckily I was able to find a fairly cheap flight for Saturday morning, and Seth agreed to pick me up from the airport, so I could be there with everyone. It just so happened that Grammie, my aunt Joyce, and my cousin Jimmy were down from Ohio that week visiting Mom and Dad. But we were concerned about Grammie too, because of her health issues, and Dad said that she was pretty upset and had been on the back porch praying the rosary for about 4 hours straight. Thankfully work was understanding about me having to leave, so I left work early Saturday morning and caught a flight to NC. (I want to say a huge Thank You to my dear friend John and Michael for taking my shifts!)

I was there until Monday afternoon, and Dillon seemed to be doing better. I was excited that I actually got a chance to hold him and Shelby. I even got a chance to feed them a bottle, and of course, smother them with hugs and kisses. I took a few pics and vids that I'll post when I finish this update. When I left on Monday, they were trying to decide whether or not they were going to do an upper GI on Dillon. During my lay over in Detroit, I talked with Dad and he said they were still saying that it was acid reflux. He told me that they put some dye in his formula and x-rayed him while he ate, so they could see what was happening. They said the formula was hitting the acid in his stomach, then coming up into his nasal passages and draining into his lungs, and that's what was stopping him from breathing. So they switched his food again and both him and Shelby are on acid medication, and they thought that would keep things under control.

I talked with Carrie the other day and she said they were still thinking about releasing him later that day, but that she was concerned because he had another episode, but that the nurses didn't seem to believe her. She said they turned off the monitors so she couldn't watch them anymore. My guess was that they were thinking she was watching them too much and getting too worked up. I asked her to call me and let me know whether or not they released him and how things were going. As of last night, I hadn't heard any more, so I was going to call this morning, but when I got up I had an e-mail update from Dad. Instead of trying to retype everything he said, I'm just going to copy it into here.

As most of you know Dillon was diagnosed with acid reflux as the reason for the episode last Friday morning. As the hospital was convinced they had it under control they decided they were going to release him yesterday evening until he had another bad seizure while Carrie was signing the release paperwork. Well, the release didn't happen and he was kept there.
Dillon did not have such a good day today, he started having seizures (about 3 of them lasting for about 6 seconds) this morning. They decided to hook him up to an EKG which also included a video camera to monitor so they could capture the seizures to see what the next step would be. That happened about 11:00 am and they started coming about 1 every 2 hours until about 3pm, after that they started coming quicker, about every 3-5 minutes. In a ten minute span he had over 6 seizures. Not all of them were the same, they all lasted about 6 seconds and most involved eyes rolling back into his little head and the body going limp, some were frantic crying with an arching/turning of his back and they all maintained the same blank stare which appeared to be focused on Carrie as if to say, help me Mommy. Then he had a real bad one, his little body went board stiff and turned color from normal to a dark red to blue and he stopped breathing, this seizure lasted for about 9 seconds which seemed like an eternity until they could get in the room, connect up oxygen on him and bring him back and it was probably the worst sight I have experienced. The neurologist came in and read the outputs, confirmed all the events recorded were in fact seizures and they started him on some anti-seizure medication at about 8:30 pm. So far as of this writing he has gone about 2+ hours with no seizures. As you can imagine Clar stayed at the hospital (along with Ms Shelby) for the night with our Daughter so they could tag team watching him throughout the night.
They are still saying acid reflux is the main driver, hard to imagine something like that could cause this? Dillon is scheduled for an MRI tomorrow morning so I'll let everyone know how that turns out. There is no longer talk as to when he will get to come home now.
Please keep baby Dillon in your thoughts and prayers
BCH

I'm getting ready to call them now to see if there's any news. I'll be sure to keep updating, and please keep Dillon in your thoughts and hearts. Love and hugs.

Posted by: LLH / 8:54 AM
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?