Tyler Update

Most of the people who check our blog consistently probably already know that Tyler was admitted to the the Children's Hospital of Illinois at OSF St. Francis in Peoria, IL. However, I've decided to outline the details, to update our friends and family, and also to have a diary of the events of this last week.

Tuesday, October 21
Tyler seemed extra fussy throughout the morning. Granted I hadn't known him for very long at that point but his demeanor in his first 3 days of life was very calm. At around 3:00 p.m., I was trying to put him in his bassinet so I could catch a nap but I noticed that every time I laid him down, he screamed his lungs out. When I would pick him up, he would stop. After this went on 2 or 3 times, I decided to try to utilize his calming vibrating chair for the first time. When I un-swaddled him from his blanket, I noticed his hands and feet were blue. I bundled him up in an extra blanket and a knit hat and held him close, thinking I could just warm him up. Mike came home 5 or 10 minutes later and told me to take his temperature. We did and found that it was 94.6 degrees. We called the pediatrician right away to report the reading. They told us to come in right away. We frantically got Tyler into his car seat and rushed to the office. In the car on the way there, Tyler became unresponsive. I decided to take him out of his car seat in an attempt to do CPR, at which point he started to cry. When we got to the pediatrician's office, the Dr. said he wanted him to go to the ER via ambulance. The ER was crazy and I was a wreck. We thought we lost our little boy. The ER Dr. decided to have him air-lifted to the Children's Hospital in Peoria so he could get advanced care. Tyler was admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit around 7:00 Tuesday evening. He was placed on IV antibiotics and was put on a warming bed in efforts to get his temperature up (it was still only 94 degrees). Overnight, they tried to wean him off the warming bed but were unsuccessful. The good news was that his vital signs were very good.

Wednesday, October 22
Tyler had been off the warming bed and was maintaining his temperature for long enough to warrant a transfer to the Intermediate level of pediatric care. After about 4 hours of being there without a warming bed, his temperature dropped again, this time to 96 degrees. We had to argue with the Dr. to get him into an Isolette/incubator. Once there, his temperature stabilized and was within normal limits. We heard a couple of different opinions from a couple of different doctors regarding the cause of Tyler's hypothermia. One doctor claimed that the cultures drawn revealed he had a urinary tract infection and also a strep infection. Another doctor said that he felt those cultures were contaminated by bacteria from the skin. Apparently he also had a "borderline abnormal fatty acid deficiency" show up on his newborn screening (we still don't know what this means). His vital signs continued to look good and the only thing the doctors could agree on was that he appeared to be healthy at the time.

Thursday, October 23
Tyler remained in the Isolette overnight with stable body temperatures. A new attending pediatrician (Dr. Edwards) came to us to tell us they knew (that his cultures showed signs of infection) and what they didn't know (if those cultures were contaminated). The plan was to repeat the cultures. He also suggested that Tyler have a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis. This freaked us out but we gave consent. About 3 hours later, we found the results of the lumbar puncture were negative. Tyler was out of the Isolette for 5 hours and kept his temperature up but he was put back in the Isolette overnight. His vitals were still good.

Friday, October 24
Tyler came out of the Isolette at 8:00 in the morning. Shortly after that, one of the residents came in to report that the repeat blood and urine cultures were also negative. He explained that just like the lumbar puncture, it only meant that there was no indication of an infection at that point in time. It was possible that the 3 days of IV antibiotics had already killed off any signs of infection. Although there was still a possibility that Tyler had an infection earlier, we were relieved to know that he didn't have an infection at that point. Dr. Edwards later said he wanted to finish the course of IV antibiotics treatments (10-14 total days) just to be safe in case there really was an infection at the time this all started. Tyler moved from Intermediate Care to General Care (the only difference being how closely he gets monitored). Tyler remained out of the Isolette all night and only had his temperature drop to 97.0 once--when a nurse left him in saturated bedding. We were furious with the nurse's negligence but we were happy he didn't have to go back into the Isolette. Vitals were all good.

Saturday, October 25
Tyler has been out of the Isolette for 24 hours at this point. He had maintained his body temperature with the help of many layers of tightly swaddled blankets. In the morning, one of Dr. Edwards on-call partners came in for rounds. She said Tyler did in fact have an infection when he arrived at the ER Tuesday evening. I don't know if this was her opinion but she said she took the call from Bloomington and that he presented as "a very sick baby". She did say his vitals looked great and that his prognosis was very good. She stated that he will finish his antibiotic treatments and will be here until Thursday or Monday, depending on how he does in the next couple of days. He stayed out of the Isolette all day and night with stable temperatures.

Sunday, October 26 (Today)
Tyler has been out of the Isolette since Friday morning. He hasn't had his temperature drop below 98.0. We were given the okay to give him his first bath. He kept his temperature up despite being wet. He has started to sleep between feedings and seems much more comfortable.

At this point, Mike and I are just thankful that Tyler appears to be doing okay. This has been a very stressful and trying time for us as a family but we do appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers that have been sent our way. I hope there will be no new updates, with the exception of Tyler's discharge. We hope he will finish the course of antibiotics without any temperature drops and that we will get to take him home (again) on Thursday. However, if something comes up in the next few days, I will attempt to put updates on the blog site. Please continue to keep our family in your thoughts and prayers!