Life Flight

The title of this blog posting, unlike my typically witty predecessors, is frank and to the point. As some of our more avid followers may have noticed, the post date is not actually an accurate indication of when this blog was written. I changed the post date to more accurately reflect the chronological order and time of the past few crazy months. I will attempt to do so in as much detail as my memory will allow. And here we go...

Emergency (January 30, 2010 around 6pm)

My father (Peter) and one of my two sisters (Katie) had flown in earlier in the week to visit and meet Autumn for the first time. We were spending Saturday night just sitting around and chatting. We had just finished watching a recently surfaced video of me as a child growing up. Autumn, maybe sensing her fathers embarrassment, decided she would rather have her stomach contents on the outside, as opposed to her insides. At the time, this was an ordinary occurrence. After departing with the milk she had recently consumed, she moved on to bile. This was the catalyst to a choking episode, which was later termed an ALTE (Apparent Life Threatening Event). She began to throw up through both her nose and mouth. Because infants are obligate nose breathers we tried to help her clear her nose with a bulb syringe. Unable to breath through her nose, Autumn began to attempt to breath through her mouth. She blew lots of bubbles out of her mouth, but received precious little oxygen. At this time Becky was on the phone with our pediatrician, who assured us it wound pass. Two minutes or so later Autumn, still getting a little oxygen but struggling bad to do so, began to turn blue. With my father driving, we hopped into his rental and headed to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital Autumn had begun to stop struggling. She was deemed "unresponsive and turning blue". She was very quickly brought to the back, where they suctioned out her nose and mouth, then placed her on oxygen. After she was stabilized and began to get her skin color back they began running test to ascertain what had caused the ALTE. During this time they brought in a x-ray machine to check her lungs for aspiration. Ten-Fifteen minutes later they brought the machine back in for more x-rays. Both Becky and I found this peculiar, but we chalked it up to Autumn moving the first time. Sometime later, while I was in the waiting room filling my family in on the happenings, the nurse rushed me back in the room in time to hear the doctor telling Becky that our daughter's heart was in backwards. Half and hour later I was home packing luggage. Soon after, Becky's brother (Aaron) was able to make it in and we were able to give Autumn a Priesthood Blessing. Within the next hour we found ourselves in an ambulance and then on a twin-engine plane taking off from Rexburg, ID en route to Salt Lake City, UT with a final destination of Primary Children's Hospital.

J/K (January 31, 2010)
We arrived in Salt Lake about 1AM, where we took another ambulance ride to the Hospital. Things happened at a fairly good pace when we got in. Test took place, including blood, urine, and spinal fluid being drawn (Spinal Tap was awful. We had to leave. When we came back she was so frantic she had scratched up her own face). Looking back now, in between the nightmare of the unknown and xrays, EKG, spinal tap, three IVs, etc., there were some moments of levity in all this. While doing her tests they needed a urine sample. While trying to thread a catheter she peed on them. They also needed a get her temperature, which they did so with a rectal thermometer, but not before she exacted her revenge by pooing on the thermometer. That's my girl! :o) Within two hours of being there, shortly after Becky's mother (Peggy) and her mother's sister (Gaylene) arrived, we got the big news. Her heart was not in backwards. In fact, with the exception of a minor heart murmur, her heart was perfectly fine. It was explained to us that Autumn does have an odd shaped heart, but that was quite typical for a newborns. Because the doctor in Rexburg was not used to looking at x-rays of newborn hearts, he mistook the odd shape as a major heart defect where the heart, and much of the internal organs, are facing the wrong way. For the life of me, I cannot recall the exact name of the disease.

Enlightened (February 1-2, 2010)

Anyways, they kept us for two days to monitor her for an explanation for the ALTE. Tachycardia, an abnormally high heart rate over an extended amount of time, (Normal for her age about 180bpm, hers 200-225bpm), diminished and where dismissed. Modeling of the skin (skin that looks a lot like marble, caused by lack of oxygen to the extremities and dehydration) were also dismissed because of her 'fair-complexion'. In the end she was diagnosed with Thrush and GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflex Disease). GERD is a chronic digestive disease that causes stomach fluids to flow back into the food pipe. It also causes Acid Reflux and Heartburn. It was the cause of the ALTE and the catalyst of the whole shin-dig. One of the doctors, as we were being released, joked about the visit being a very inconvenient and expensive visit to get a prescription for Thrush. Indeed it was. The bills have begun rolling in and at times it is incredibly overwhelming. At these times, we look back to that moment when we were told that her heart was in backwards and we can't help but be grateful. As far as bad situations go, it is hard to imagine many things that could be worse than wondering if your child is going to live to experience their first birthday, steps, words, etc. As dark as those few hours were, in its finality, the who incident couldn't have ended much better and for that we are eternally grateful.