Why we have to wear pajamas

Posted by Erin Wilson On Tuesday, December 29, 2009 3 comments
So on night one home from the hospital it was confirmed that we do in fact have to wear pajamas from now on! I joke but it's only to bring something lighter to an awful experience this morning. As I posted last night, Josiah had an amazing day! We put him to bed and he was sound asleep. We got up several times through the night because of alarms that were all related to the monitors not picking up right. At 4:45 am Milo got up to respond to Josiah's vent alarm. When he got to him he was "screaming" ( I put it in quotes because you can't hear Josiah cry or scream but you can see it all over his face) and the vent was alarming, which indicated that Josiah needed to be suctioned. When Milo passed the catheter through Josiah's trach to suction him. Josiah stopped breathing and became limp. At that point his heart rate dropped. By this time I had gotten up because the alarms had gotten worse. Milo was bagging Josiah with the ambu bag and he was still not responding. His heart rate dropped to the point where CPR needed to be started so we began CPR together while I called 911. We did several cycles of CPR with no response from Josiah. At that point we decided to change out his trach and put a new one in. I did that while Milo continued CPR. After several more cycles of CPR Josiah began to cry and fight again. Praise God. Just as he started breathing again EMS was coming into the room. His heart rate came right back up and we headed off in the ambulance. I held him in my arms, bagging him all the way to the hospital. Josiah has been perfectly fine, perfectly himself since. The blood gas that they drew when we got to the ER was good. Showing that his body did not take too hard of a hit from this episode.

So what we think happened was that Josiah's secretions became very thick due to the 4 hour ambulance ride with out humidity to his trach. Josiah's vent has a heater that creates water vapor that get sent to his trach. This keeps Josiah's secretions from becoming too thick, which could plug off his trach. We had to shut off the heater on the trip to Greer, but did not think it was too big of a deal, as we had been told it wasn't. So this morning Josiah's trach became plugged with mucus. And in Josiah's distress when Milo suctioned him he had a response that dropped his heart rate and quit breathing. We didn't realize that it was his trach that was the problem at first because we were still getting his chest to rise with the ambu bag. What a we realize in hindsight was that the majority of the air we were giving him was being forced up and out his mouth not down into his lungs. When we changed the trach we were able to get him better breaths that brought him back. This all lasted about 15 minutes but it was the scariest 15 minutes that felt like 3 hours we have ever experienced. Our nerves are still way out on the edge.

We are grateful that Josiah made it through this "episode." And we are so grateful for the amazing training that we received in the PCICU that allowed us to respond to this event well. Especially to John and Christine for all their teaching on bagging and CPR. We prayed we would never have to use it but knew that we very well could, we just never thought we would need it our first night home. I'm grateful that we took the time last night to set up as much stuff as we could in Josiah's room so that in this emergency we knew where things were. I am very grateful that some little voice (the Holy Spirit) made me go back into Josiah's room last night as we were going to bed to find his ambu bag and place it on his bed. Thank you for all your prayers today and thank you God that we have another day with our precious boy.

3 comments to Why we have to wear pajamas

  1. says:

    coolercorner Praying, Praying for you!! Please know that you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers! Ava is sending Josiah a little surprise in the mail. Praying for a better night tonight.

    In Christ,
    Abbey Cooler
    coolercorner.blogspot.com

  1. says:

    CMaqueda God has really blessed Josiah with amazing parents. The ability to remember everything and stay calm is such a blessing. Love you all, and we'll keep praying for health and a smooth transition.

  1. says:

    Anonymous You all are in my prayers and thanks for updating, I know it cannot be your top priority right now.

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