November 20, 2008

Scary day yesterday

So Max and I were having a great day yesterday. We got up, got ready and headed to the hospital for dialysis. They hooked him up, he fell asleep without any fussing, he was tolerating the blood transfusion well and I got a massage- everything was going perfect.

Max's dialysis machine kept alarming saying that there were air bubbles in his line, so the nurse switched them. This is a common thing for them to have to do with the babies lines since they are so tiny. Max starting fussing a little as she was doing this so I put his little silky over his head for comfort. I am not sure what made me check his lines, but I lifted his silky and the sheet under his head was covered in blood. I shrieked in fear that he was bleeding everywhere. Within seconds, the nurses were there applying pressure to Max's catheter site and disconnecting him from the dialysis machine. The nephrology fellow ran over to see what was going on. I moved out of the way, was given a face mask and a chair. I sat there in horror hearing Max's screams and his face become covered in blood from the nurses hands. They took the dressing off of his site and noticed that they bleeding had stopped. The catheter was still in the neck, but they wanted to do an xray to see the placement of it within his vascular system. Max's attending nephrologist also came to the bedside to assess the situation. Once the xray showed that the placement looked fine they decided to call the surgeon who put the catheter in. Surgery said to get a dye study to make sure of the placement and to make sure there wasn't any cracks in the cath. So we waited about an hour before we were called to go to radiology. I called Tim at this point and he was going to meet us there. The doctors wanted to give Max a little of the blood that was left from the transfusion to replace what he had lost- some of the nurses guessed that he lost anywhere from 50-100mL. Max smiled the whole time we were waiting for the radiologist. I'm telling ya... he likes to see what people will do if he switches things up a bit. So the radiologist got there, put the dye in and we watched it go beautifully through the vein just like it was suppose to.

So, what caused all of this mayhem? We have do not know for sure. The dialysis team has their guesses, but like many other things, we will never know. Once again, Max has stumped the doctors. I had nightmares last night that blood was profusely coming out of his neck. At one point during the night I literally jumped out of bed to check on him because I thought we was bleeding to death. Drama, drama, drama.

Dialysis today started perfectly and ended perfectly. Max slept the entire 2 1/2 hours without too much fussing. We wasn't happy at the end when we had to wake him up to weigh him and get him dressed to go home though. Needless to say, Max and mommy came home and we BOTH took a nap.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How scary. Glad everything went well today. I think Max wants to be in a medical book somewhere. haha. Hope he continues to do well and quits giving Mommy heartattacks.

Katie Ruschman

Rachael Schirano \\ Rachael Schirano Photography said...

how scary, that must have been so frightening! i am so glad to hear that everything is ok and today went smoothly!

Anonymous said...

Goodness! I can only wait to see what excitement his teenage years brings :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Beth,
My mom works for someone who knows Carol Wells and the livingston family and heard about Max. Her name is Nikki Trapp, Staddleman is her maiden name. She is A+ blood and is willing to donate on a regular basis for Max. Please email me at mpfeffer13@yahoo.com or call me at 859-441-2052 for mor information. Thanks. Melanie