Mya's hospital experience

So I'm catching up on blogging and wanted to share about Mya's hospital experience.

Zach left for Washington DC on Tuesday afternoon to attend the Covenant Life Worship Conference. Ironically, we joked around before he left, "ok, no ER trips this time" (these things seldom happen but tend to be when he is gone).

So, thursday, 8/6 , after her nap, Mya woke up not acting at all like herself. She was extremely sleepy and hard to wake up. All I could think of was "mental status changes" (meningitis, things with the brain, exteme illness, etc) so I took her immediately into the clinic. She started to have short episodes of extreme colic (irritable, writhing like in pain) followed by really sleepy periods. I saw a pediatrician who did not know me, my family, or Mya so it was hard to convince her that something was really wrong (Mya groggily would open her eyes and smile). Finally she saw one of the colicky episodes for herself and agreed with me that something more than just a virus was going on and sent us to UNM peds ER to work her up for something called intussusception, which is a part of the bowel telescoping into another part. This can be fairly benign and correct itself or can cause major complications if it is the portion of small bowel going into the large bowel and if this gets "stuck". They don't want to miss it b/c it could cause ischemia of the bowel (cuts off blood supply to bowel) and of course this would be an emergency requiring surgery.

Her episodes were intermittent all day and work up was inconclusive so they were going to send us home around 10pm with instructions to return if she worsened. I was not feeling great about this when (as answer to our prayers) the ER doc saw one of her "episodes" and agreed it was worrisome enough to get a consult and more tests. Eventually she developed a couple more classic signs of intussusception so at 2am she had an air enema to definitively diagnose and also correct (it reduces the small bowel or pushes it back out of the large intestine). If this doesn't work they would have had to go to surgery and there is also a risk of perforating the bowel, but praise God it worked!

After the air enema, they admitted us to the peds floor for observation as there is a small chance of recurrence (3-10%) within the first 24-48 hrs after reduction. The next morning (friday), Mya woke up her usual cheerful self. However, at 11am she had an episode of extreme colic and was inconsolable for about 1/2 hour. It was a little different from the day before, but needless to say, I was still extremely concerned that this was a recurrence. If not, I knew that something else was causing her pain and I wanted to fix it! The pediatric surgical team decided to do a follow up ultrasound. The ultrasound was clear (we had an ultrasound read as "clear" the previous night but this time it was the senior pediatric radiologist who had caught the intussusception and also performed the air enema there when we were doing the ultrasound). Mya had two other similar episodes around dinner time but with the clear ultrasound they were sure these were due to gas passing through the inflammed areas of intestine and not to a recurrence of the intussusception. Since she was not yet eating and had not had bowel movement, they kept us over friday night to continue observation.

Zach was able to move up his flight (love Southwest) without any cost and arrived home Friday evening. He and the kids visited us in the hospital and then went home for the evening. Mya continued to improve rapidly and although still wouldn't eat anything, didn't have any more colickly episodes so we were discharged Saturday morning. Sure enough almost right when we got home, Zach was able to get her to take a bottle. She (and me) caught up on much needed sleep and in the evening I have never been more excited to change a poopy diaper :). She has been her normal cheerful self since then. We are so thankful for God's care and His answer to prayer! Even though, many practioners thought I was a little overexcited about nothing, they hung in there and God revealed what was truly going on and what Mya needed. I was especially thankful to have our good friends' the Rushes watch our other kids. They enfolded them into their family of already 3 kids for 1 1/2 days and although the kids prayed for Mya, they thought it was all just a fun excursion. My friend Cindy spent all day Thursday in the ER with me and much of the day on Friday. I don't know what I would have done without her. Our friend, Alway, our pediatrician, was frequently on the phone with me, talking me through things and also being an advocate for me with the medical staff at the hospital. There were also countless of others who offered to help and more importantly were praying fervently for us.