Whirlwind & CPR

The past couple of months have been crazy, to say the least. Kyle and I finally got better, and we (Karl, Kyle and I) managed to get in a vacation to see some family, and attend a wedding. When we returned, Kyle was his normal self, a slight runny nose, but since he's teething, we just kept an eye on it (remaining clear and minimal).

A week later, on 6/9, Kyle spiked a high fever out of no where. In a matter of minutes, he went from smiling to completely lifeless and blue in Karl's arms. I had gone upstairs to grab a thermometer just before this happened. I was drawing up a dose of Tylonal, when Karl said he stopped breathing and was turning blue. It was just that quick - from he's a little warm to completely out.

Karl quickly began CPR, as I dialed 911. There was no response from Kyle, as I rushed upstairs to try and find an oxygen tank. I had already submitted all the tanks back to the oxygen company - so I had thought. I was digging frantically through the closet, when Karl said he was breathing again, but real shallow. Behind a bunch of boxes - in the back of Kyle's closet, I caught the glimpse of a canula. I tugged on it, with resistence - an oxygen tank! I grabbed the small tank, with regulator still attached and rushed downstairs.

I was still on the phone with the 911 operator, she said the paramedics where on their way. It seemed like forever until they arrived. Kyle was no longer blue, rather ashy and stark looking. When he was coming to, his eyes began fluttering. We don't know for certain, because he didn't go into full convulsions - but it was likely that he had a febrile seizure as a result of the temperature spike. When the ambulance arrived, they took Kyle inside of it, and wouldn't let us near him until he was stabilized for transport. I was so horrified, they were taking so long. Finally they swung open the door and told me to hop in the front - we were off to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, Kyle was doing much better, and was pink again. His temp came back at 104.5. They gave him a tylonal suppository. His blood tests came back normal (initially), with exception of his liver enzymes being a little high, and his white blood count was extremely high, 22.5. They did a spinal tap to rule out menengittis, and fortunately that came back fine. Then a loading dose of antibiotics was started just in case. We were given the option of coming home, or being transferred to another hospital. 9 hours had lapsed, and the baby hadn't eaten - he was doing great (laughing playing, no fever) - so we opted to go home, and follow with the dr in the morning.

We saw the dr on Saturday, and all was well. Then Monday the hospital called with Kyle's blood results. He had StepPneumoccocal growing in his blood. None of us, drs included had any idea where or how he contracted it, but the only viable explanation was possibley his g-tube site - or a cold gone really bad (we doubt the later). Fortunately Kyle had already had the spinal tap, and loading dose of anti-biotics. We quickly went into the Drs office again, and he checked him over once more before giving us a script for Omnicef.

It's been one week since we started the antibiotics. Tomorrow afternoon I take Kyle back to the dr for more bloodwork. They won't be looking at his white count, unless it's way off - because the antibiotics will most likely throw the results anyway. However, we are going to be looking at his liver enzymes again, and hoping that they're fine.

A friend told me about a little girl that was recently hospitalized for the same thing that Kyle has. Only her issue didn't escalate to the level of testing Kyle received, and her blood poisoning caused kidney failure, in addition to other things. I hope she's okay, but at the same point - as frightening as this all wass, I'm thankful that what happened did, so that Kyle would the treatment he needed. We had no other warning signs to make us think there was any problem.

The dr said that what occured was not a result of his prematurity, rather it was his body just shutting itself down from the sudden spike in fever. If there is one thing that the readers take from this is to Please, Please, PLEASE take infant AND child CPR courses. There are some variances that you need to be aware of as your child ages. Do not push it off, do not think it couldn't happen to you. This is the second time we've had to use CPR on Kyle - the first due to his prematurity - the second, due to a fluke. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if we didn't know CPR. It saves lives!