Day 361 - Middle of the Night Emergency and a Late Evening Scare

Sunday, December 26th, 2021

Saturday night Dad sleeps downstairs to give Mom a break for 12 hours. Typically between 10pm Saturday until 10am Sunday. 😴

It all started when Mom was taking a shower 🚿 around 11:30pm Saturday night and Dad yelled for help several times. He didn't know she was in the shower and Mom couldn't hear him. Eventually she heard her name, immediately turned off the shower, grabbed a towel, and ran down the stairs soaked but expecting the worse. Dad let her know that James was not doing well. He had been inconsolable for about an hour. Dad was currently venting James with a syringe and had about 40cc of gastric juice come up. He was unable to suction him while he was venting. Mom quickly suctioned James and he had a lot of secretions blocking his airway. However that didn't make James feel any better. His respiratory rate was still very high, and his heart rate and oxygen levels were not reading. So Mom changed out the pulse ox sticker but her hands were shaking pretty bad putting it on his foot. The adrenaline that rushes through your body when you think you may need to do an emergency trach change, chest compressions or ambu bagging. 😱 It takes a few minutes to calm down. Mom took over venting James because she has been doing this for months and there is a technique to it. She was still dripping wet with conditioner in her hair. Dad let her know that he didn't know she was in the shower and thought she was sleeping. 

Eventually after about an hour of venting and having James sit up, he was back to sleep. He had a lot of air in his stomach that was also causing him reflux and making him breathe faster.

We learned that we probably need to get walkie talkies, since a baby monitor defeats the purpose of being off duty when sleeping upstairs. Mom also taught Dad that in a situation when James needs to be suctioned and you're stuck with a half full syringe that you can't put down, you just put it down. You can grab a bunch of gauze or a wash cloth (whatever is in arms reach) and stuff it in the syringe. Then you can use pillows or blankets in the crib to balance or lean this syringe in an upright position. If it falls then you hopefully have enough cloth to soak up the mess. Worse case, more laundry, but now James can breathe. 

Around 2:30am we all went to sleep. 🥱

Overall the day was fine, James watched movies with Mom and Dad on the projector 📽️. James curiously grabbed Mom's necklace and posed for the camera several times. He loves selfies mode.

But then around 11pm again Mom noticed that his pulse ox was reading low oxygen, below the limit. 🫁 Normally he is 98-100. This alarmed at 92. He was sitting at 91. He wasn't awake or moving. The machine was getting a good read. It was a sign for a mucus plug which was really concerning. Mom ran through the checklist... 1.) Suctioning 2.) Checking the oxygen tubing for a kink. Mom disconnected the oxygen tubing from the ventilator and felt it flowing. 3.) Reposition his pulse ox, even though it looked fine. But none of those things increased his oxygen levels. Mom quickly ran upstairs to consult dad on what to do. He suggested to just increase his flow from the oxygen concentrator. He was at .5 liters and we increased him to 1 liter. It doesn't sound like a whole lot but anytime you're increasing oxygen it's not a good sign. It typically means they're getting sick, so we will have to keep our eye open for other symptoms. 

P.S. James' 1st Birthday is coming up! Wouldn't it be fun for James to read an email from you when he is older? What a treasure! His email is JamesWestonAbramowitz@gmail.com. How awesome to get his reply back in like 10 years...