The Emma Report

Good news, Emma is off oxygen and maintaining her oxygen satuatiion levels..

So much can change in a few hours… Emma started having difficulty breathing about midnight. Off to CHEO emergency again. She was given 2 doses of epi. but was still having difficulty maintaining her sats. without supplemental oxygen. She’s been re-admitted to hospital and is still on O2. Even though she tested negative for RSV earlier in the week, the docs are running more tests again… Eric just came home (he was at the hospital with Emma for 12 hours) and I’m off to CHEO now. I’ll update more later.

…. just a quick update to report that Emma is doing well, ‘though she’s still congested and has a rather hoarse cough. We’re not sure if the ‘hoarseness’ is related to her prolonged early ventilation (preemies who were on ventilators for many weeks sometimes have hoarse voices), or if she does in fact have some vocal cord/nerve damage attributable to her early surgery (for PDA ligation). Emma has been referred to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist at CHEO for further investigations, but we’ve been told we may have to wait many months for the appointment.

Thanks to everyone for their offers of help. It was a crazy, busy week, but Eric is now home, Emma is doing better, and everything is back under control. I’ll keep all your kind offers in mind for the future, though

By the way, we had our last appointment with the lactation consultant at the SCN this week. Emma has “graduated” and now tips the scales at 8-and-a-half pounds!!!!

I’m very happy to say that Emma is back at home tonight. She was taken off supplemental oxygen this morning and remained stable all day, so the docs decided she could go home tonight. Yay!! She still has a stuffy nose and a cough, but she seems none the worse for wear

We’ll go and see her pediatrician later in the week and will watch her closely, but the docs think the worst is over. They were pleased with how she’s doing today and felt that her immune system was strong as her condition didn’t worsen over the past 2 days. She’s sleeping peacefully now, so I’m gonna try and get some rest too. Yesterday was very scary and it served to remind me of just how fragile Emma still is…

In spite of our best efforts to keep germs at bay with near-fanatical hand-washing and copious amounts of Purell, Emma came down with cold late last week (Michaela, Eric and I have all been sick with colds over the holidays). Her very stuffy nose was soon followed by a nasty barking cough. Saturday night she started “desating” – having periods of low oxygenation – (we’re still monitoring her heart rate and blood oxygen levels), and by Sunday she was even more congested and was not feeding well.

I brought Emma to the emergency department at CHEO early this a.m. and she was assessed by the triage team within minutes of our arrival (no waiting when you are a micropreemie, I guess). Given her condition, her chronic lung problems (bronchopulmonary dysplasia), and the fact that she was an extreme preemie, they decided not to take any chances and admitted her (mostly for observation). Thankfully, test results have come back negative for Respiratory syncytial virus [see http://www.rsvinfo.com/ and http://www.rsvprotection.com/ for more information on RSV] so that is a huge relief. At this point, the tentative diagnosis is viral bronchiolotis (apparently CHEO has had several babies admitted with it this winter).

By this evening, Emma was breathing a bit easier. She’s been put on low-flow oxygen and seems to be less congested. The docs will reassess her condition tomorrow morning. As luck would have it, Eric is out-of-town on a business trip this week, so I wasn’t able to stay in the hospital overnight with Emma (as Michaela is at home). It was incredibly hard leaving her there tonight. Hopefully her stay in hospital will be very short. I’ll update more tomorrow.

Emma’s cold has turned a bit nasty. She’s not in any immediate danger, but she’s at CHEO for observation (24-48 hours). Unfortunately I’m out of town on business for a few days, so Laurie has her hands full right now.