I was going to give an update on how Josiah was doing at home, but unfortunately, we had to take him back to the hospital late Thursday night. I've taken excerpts from an email Bill sent out to explain what happened...
At around 9:30 on Thursday evening, Josiah was sitting in his bouncy seat when he suddenly starting gagging and crying. It was a frantic cry, and he began turning red and seemed like he was having a really difficult time breathing and/or choking. Shortly after that he turned white and then finally blue in the face. Bill took him into the bathroom and aspirated his nose and throat getting a lot of mucous and possibly formula and some darker color stuff out. I can't thank God enough that Bill was there and had received a prompting to aspirate Josiah. I was just panicking and had no clue what to do. All I kept thinking was, "What if we lose him? What if we lose him?" and helplessly/frantically appealed to God for His mercies and intervention. It was one of the most scariest moments of my life.
I called 911 when Josiah started turning red, and once again, our local emergency crews were here within 5-10 minutes (praise God for them). By the time they got here, Josiah was mostly back to normal color. After they assessed him , despite his stable condition, the senior medic strongly recommended that we bring him in to the hospital to be evaluated by a physician. He said they could bring him in the ambulance or we could just take him ourselves. We decided to take him via ambulance. The EMT that was in charge and who rode with Bill and Josiah turned out to be a great guy who had done mission work with a friend from our old care group in India with Yesu Paddem (sp?). Great guy and very attentive to our needs and Josiah's care. We were grateful to the Lord for sending him.
After evaluation, the attending pediatric ER doctor said they would like to admit Josiah to monitor his status overnight. He brought in a neonatologist (who was GREAT), who said they would like to keep him for 24 hours to monitor him and see if they could pick up another one of these incidents (to see if they could find out the cause of it). So back to the NICU went Josiah… They put in an IV and took some blood and samples. The original findings were good.
Yesterday morning some labs came back irregular - nothing terrible, but his white blood cell count and another test (sorry, it was a long word and we can't remember it right now. :) ) was not normal. So they started him on an antibiotic.
They said there are 5 possible causes to something like this occurring:
1) Reflux
2) Central Apnea (periodic cessation of breathing)
3) Anemia
4) Infection
5) Seizure
Reflux is the most likely case. They said they will PROBABLY release him with a home apnea monitor to keep an eye on him for a few weeks. They will treat him for an infection with the antibiotics to be safe (which will require at least a 48 hour stay in the NICU). They also MAY do an EEG to try and rule out seizure because of family history.
So, please pray for our little man. We want to get him back home safe and healthy. God was very gracious to us in this whole situation by allowing this to happen while we were there watching him (and not asleep), and giving Bill prompting to aspirate him (despite what the 911 operator said, which was to 'do nothing') and give us such great medical care-givers -- the NICU doctor from Thursday morning especially (whom we met at around 2:30 am). Funny enough this is the first NICU doctor we've actually talked to despite 12 days combined time of children in the NICU. Now we've met two inside of a day.
As of today, Josiah is doing great and putting on lots of weight. He now is 5 lbs 12 oz! What a chub! It is great seeing his little cheeks fatten up. Hopefully the rest of his body will follow suit. The remainder of his labwork has come back normal. So they're basically waiting for him to finish taking his antibiotics, and they can remove his IV. As for him being released, Bill and I will have to take an infant CPR class so we know how to help him better the next time something like this happens. And the pulmonologist (lung/respiratory doc) wants us to do the home apnea monitoring for at least a few weeks to see if we can rule that out. Bill and I will also have to receive training on how to use that as well. So hopefully the CPR and home monitor training will happen on Monday so we can take our baby home. But of course, it all depends on our insurance and which brand of monitoring system they want us to use and whether the hospital already has it or not. The doc said Tuesday would be the latest if they don't have the right monitoring system available right away.
Please pray for my heart. It has been a very difficult last 6 weeks. And we are all feeling the effects of it. I was very angry when they said they wanted to keep Josiah for 24 hours in the hospital. I absolutely detest hospitals and just did not want my baby to have to go through all the testing and other things they'd have to do to him. I just wanted to take him home. But Bill has kindly reminded me (even though I don't receive it well) that they have to rule out all the possibilities to make sure he's really ok. They would be negligent if they did not check everything out. And fortunately, in God's kindness, they haven't had to do anything really invasive. The worst he's gotten is an IV put in for the antibiotics, and there are certainly worse things that could be wrong with him. Another friend had also made a passing comment that God has been faithful so far and will continue to be. I was kinda like, "Huh? God? Oh, yeah... That's so true. I am such a dummy!" In my self-centered world, I had forgotten about God and that He is intimately involved in all of this, especially that He loves Josiah even more than I do. I need to take time to meditate on that more.
The upside to all of this is that it is so encouraging to see Josiah doing well in the hospital and putting on all that weight. He actually seems happy, alert, and active there... much more so than he had been at home. Maybe he did have an underlying infection of some kind that we didn't know about. Bill pointed out that he just seems like a different baby. And I didn't really think about it until he mentioned it. He often seemed lethargic and listless at home, but in the hospital, he seems to be thriving, putting on a lot of weight, and just very animated and engaged.
William has been having a hard time adjusting. Just when it seemed things were getting back to normal again, Josiah is gone and Dada and/or Momma seem to be disappearing again. (We've been going to the hospital to spend time with Josiah and do a couple feedings with him.) Bill had been his only constant when I was in the hospital. And I think it shakes him up a lot when Bill isn't there. He is very attached to Bill right now. So we've been trying to walk the line between forbearance and understanding that this is a hard time of transition for William with everything that's going on versus training/disciplining him and how to handle his meltdowns. This is an area that we will definitely be seeking counsel on.
Bill has been doing a great job serving our family, especially under such constant stress. But he is trying hard to balance work and care for William. And though he loves the relationship that has grown between him and William, it is tough sometimes that William is so needy with him and prefers only Bill for everything. Please pray for wisdom for Bill... that the Lord would provide insight and guidance on how to best lead our family and strength to do so.
We appreciate all your prayers and keeping our family in your hearts. We want to walk in faith for what the Lord has for us, but it's hard. We trust though that despite the hardship, there is a reason for all of this and that it's for our good. More than that, God is doing this because He loves us more than we will ever know, especially Josiah.
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