Kate had been seizure free all week and was doing much better...heart function was good despite her leaking tricuspid valve and we were working on weaning down the vent again. On this day, she seemed off to me though. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just wasn't feeling as positive this day. I left the hospital around 8:30 that night to get some sleep before morning rounds. At 11:20pm, a PICU nurse called me explaining that Kate was coding again. What?! I remember getting instant chills and my heart was pounding so fast as I threw on any clothes I could find. She goes on to tell me that Kate was ok after 5 minutes of compressions and that her heart was working on its own. The heart surgeon got on the phone and says that something happened with her breathing tube, causing shock to her system and the cardiac arrest..
The nurses couldn't believe how fast I got to the hospital that night..I had to get to her as fast as possible..she had to be ok..her brain couldn't handle another stint on ECMO...when I arrived she was pale, not too puffy, but had a high heart rate in the 190s (normal for Kate at this point was 160s). I sat in her room all night praying for her heart rate to come down and to not see any seizure activity. My prayers were answered...Kate fought through and her heart rate settled and we saw no new seizures.
This incident, along with Kate's previous arrest, provided the doctors enough experience to see that Kate's ventilator was still necessary...her heart was too fragile in this Norwood physiology along with her leaking valve to handle the extra work load of completely breathing on her own.
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| Kate earlier in the day |
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