After dropping Jacob off at a friend's house for the day, I was driving to the hospital to see Kate. I was excited since I had gotten to hold her the day before and work on her pacifier with her..I was hoping to do the same again..Then I received a phone call from the nurse practitioner telling me that Kate was being re-intubated due to respiratory distress and oxygen saturations in the 30s. I couldn't believe this was happening to my baby and drove so fast to get there to see her.
As I ran into the PICU unit, I came around the corner to her room and saw a huge amount of surgery gear carts, purple people and Barb...instantly I felt sick..I knew it was not good. I could barely focus on what Barb was telling me..that Kate had coded, needed compressions, but was still alive and was being put back on ECMO. Barb had called Craig right after I talked to the nurse practioner on the phone to inform him of Kate's code so he was on the way..
I was taken to a private room to wait for Craig and Dr. Fiore to complete the ECMO procedure..the only thing I remember about those moments I had alone, was crying and shaking uncontrollably. How could she be fine the day before and near death the next?? The doctors had no answers to this question immediately either.
We finally got to go see her after a few hours..she looked nothing like the girl I was holding the day before..VERY pale, extremely puffy and the 2 ECMO cannulas were coming out of her neck this time. We could see where they had done compressions on her chest. It took 62 minutes to get Kate onto ECMO from the time she coded. Now we had to wait and see if any of her major organs would be affected. We were even more scared than her surgery day.
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