That word has become very very prudent in the past few days.
As you know, I recently had triplets. they were born at 31 weeks.
Our littlest guy was born at 2 pounds even.
Everything has been going great. The boys were growing and doing awesome.
Tuesday night, our world almost caved in.
Our littlest guy, Brody, had been fussy and not taking his feedings very well.
he had some residual food in his belly and was running a little temp. That night at about 10 pm, they said he began have alot of problems breathing and needed to have a breathing tube put in.
Got the next call at about 1am telling us that the doctors suspect he has NEC. (Google NEC and preemies)
It's essentially a bacteria in the small intestine that causes the tissue to die. The mortality rate for children with NEC is very high, especially if they have surgery and need to have the dead parts of the small intestine removed.
So they did an XRay and confirmed that there was air in the small intestine which was due to the bacteria. He began antibiotics immediately. We head up to the NICU at 2am. It's a crazy chaotic scene.
The next day we were informed that he may need to go to surgery so they can look and preform a bowl resection. They told us there were three possibilities; they look at his intestines, they look fine, they close him up..... or the look at his intestines, see some dead intestine and remove the dead tissue... and lastly, open him up, examine the intestine, discover that the entire intestine was necrotic and could do nothing for him.... the latter of which, he would not survive. this is why the mortality rate is high... if the surgeon removes too much, they can't get enough nutrients and will not be able to eat.
scary......
we get the notification that on Tuesday at 5pm, he would be going to surgery.
he goes into surgery and is out in about 30 minutes. We thought this was a good sign!
the surgeon came in and told us that he had removed about 8cm of the small intestine...which wasn't all that significant. he then mentioned that he saw about 2% of the small intestine in good shape.... then he said the rest of the intestine, about 95% was marginal .. some good, some bad. he left that in tact with the hope that it would clear up. If it did not improve, he would not survive.
My wife and I hit the floor. just devistated, just destroyed. Our healthy little boy, just 2 days ago is now fighting for his life. unreal.
today .... today was another brutal day. he required another surgery to go back in a look for more dead tissue and to see if the 95% of the intestine was dead or alive.
this was absolutely unbareable. .. the waiting, the thought that i may not see my 18 day old boy alive again. i can tell you this is the hardest thing I have ever ever had to deal with.
chances were not on his side. the percentages were not good
He made it through surgery...... barely. he crashed on the operating room... they couldn't get his blood pressure up, heart rate stabilized and breathing leveled out.
he was in rough shape.
the surgeon said that the procedure wasn't too bad. he removed about 37cm of dead intestine.... leaving enough where he would survive without any problems. we think, success!...
then he said he is very very criticially sick. and he said that he would not be surprised that if he did not survive the next 48 hours. gave him less than 50% chance of survival.
since out of surgery, he's had huge problems.... mostly with breathing and blood pressure. a roller coaster of stable and critical.....
right now he is good. everything is stable and looking good. blood work is good, blood gas levels are good. things are "ok". so that is as good as he can do right now.
he needs to survive the night. If he makes it through the night, it will be big victory. He won't be out of the woods at all but will be doing better then he was today.
So I humbly ask the good people of Landthieves to say a prayer for my little boy. If you are not the praying type, please send good thoughts, good vibes, positive thinking my way.
i have spoke to god and believe in the power of prayer.
Thanks....
Originally Posted by WISooner
