~Some of Zach's Story~

I thought that I would try to put down here what happened with Zach while both my children are taking naps...

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get on here... But I know it will probably be separated into a couple (if not more!) entries.

So, I don't know if many of you remember, but for a while, I was mentioning that Zach was sleeping a lot, not eating, breathing really hard and just wasn't himself.  We did take him to the doctor once for it, and because he was having enough wet diapers and taking in some food, the doctor said we shouldn't be worried.

In fact, a day or so later, he bounced back out of the sleeping long periods and eating a little bit to being awake more and pounding food...

Then comes March 15th.  That evening, I noticed Zach wasn't all into the eating thing again.  I didn't think much of it, because he wasn't sleeping long periods or anything.

Well, on Wednesday, March 16th, Zach wasn't himself at all.  He was sleeping even longer, not wanting to eat and was cranky.

That afternoon, after he ate, he vomitted up everything that he took in.  He proceeded to vomit each and every time I fed him from then on too.  Also, he was becoming harder to wake up and his breathing was becoming labored.

So, on Thursday, March 17th, I called his doctor's office and asked to be seen.  We were able to get in at 10am... At the doctors office, she listened to my concerns and because I had pyloric stenosis as a child (it is where the muscle that connects from the stomach to the intestines grows too fast and becomes larger, then closes off) she wanted to get him an ultra sound to rule that out.

She didn't seem to interested in the fact that his breathing was "weird" and that he was sleeping long periods... I had a feeling that something was wrong, but I wasn't able to get that point across to her.

At 215pm, we went for his ultra sound.  It was negative for pyloric stenosis, but Zachary was becoming increasingly worse... Not eating at this point since 730am and just crying a lot...

Around 5pm, Derek left the house to go take something to his friends house.  I had this horrible feeling that Zachary wasn't doing well.  He wasn't reacting to loud noises and his body was clammy.  So, I called my parents to have them come over to look at him.

I wanted to make sure that it wasn't my mind playing tricks on me... I new something was wrong and I wanted to be reasured I wasn't going crazy!

Right when my parents walked in, my dad took one look at Zach and said, "this baby needs to be at the hospital now".  So, I questioned him and asked if I should call 911.  When he said yes, I broke down.  I couldn't do it...

Thankfully, my mom called.  Zachary at this point was breathing so hard that I don't think he was actually getting much air in.  His color was this white pasty color and his lips were purple.

Derek still wasn't home at this point, so I called him and said that we were having an ambulance come and take Zach to the hospital.

When the ambulance got to us, they came with a bunch of questions too.  Lol.  I had the hardest time talking to them just because I was so frazzled!

They started to asses Zachary and I heard one of them say that his heart rate was 250 beats per minute.  At that point, I turned to my mom and said, "That isn't good.  That isn't good at all."

At that point, they start to move faster.  They put oxygen on Zach (his Oxygen level in his body was VERY VERY low) and they start to put him in the ambulance.  Thankfully Derek finally showed up and he jumped in the rig with them... I wanted him to ride with Zach, because I sure in the hell couldn't have!

My mom and I left my dad and Rowan at the house and followed (as best as we could) the ambulance to the hospital.

At the hospital, we were met by one of their case workers.  I guess when there is a serious case, they assign people to the families to help them out.  Get them information they may need or just a cup of coffee.

At that point, she told us that a nurse would be in in a momment.

When the charge nurse finally came in, she gave us the low-down on Zachary.  His body temperature was 91 degrees, his blood sugar level was 21 and his oxygen was so low that they couldn't even get a reading... Plus him being so cold was effecting that too.

So, she told us that they had placed an IV in his leg between the two bones, were going to paralyze him to put him on the respirator and try to figure out what was going on with him.

We were at the hospital from 530-930pm.  I'm not exactly sure the order now that everything happened, because truly, I wasn't in my right mind and sooo much stuff has happened since then.

Basically, the doctor finally came in and told us that our baby "is very very sick" and they were thinking that he had some blood disease, metobolic disease or some kind of infection.

He also mentioned that they were looking into shipping him off to another hospital.  They were just trying to stablize him enough to ship him out.  His body temp had risen to 94 degrees and he had no idea what they/we were looking at with Zach.

Around that time, we were able to go in and see Zachary.  He looked horrible... Sad to say, but it was true.  His color hadn't changed and now he was hooked up to all kinds of wires, monitors and tubes.

At 915pm, we were able to go back again and watch as they transfered him to all the Medi-flight equipment.  At that time, we heard the flight nurse ask, "is he still tacky" and was responded by another nurse saying, "yes, 250".

We didn't really know what that ment at that point, but we figured out later that his heart beat was around 250pm. 

930pm rolled around and we walked out to the helio pad where they were loading Zachary onto the helicopter.  We were able to kiss him good-bye and watch them take off... Seeing my three week old son being put onto a helicopter to be flown off to a far off hospital was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

After they took off, my mom, Derek and I headed back to our houses to get some changes of clothes and then finally head off to the hospital, Sutter Memorial Childrens Center in Sacramento.

Derek's parents also went up to the hospital with us.  It seemed forever driving up there.  It is only about an hour and a half trip... But it was taking FOREVER.  Sometime during the drive up there, we received a call from the flight nurse.  He told us that Zach's heartbeat never changed through out the flight staying at and around 250bpm and his temperature had stayed the same, now at 96 degrees.

Finally, we arrived at the hospital around 11pm.  We found our way to the sixth floor and somehow ran into a nurse that was actually helping with Zach.

She showed us to a room to wait for the doctor.  Waiting was the game for the night... Seriously... And boy, is waiting something really hard to do.

Sometime soon, we met with Dr. Falco (soon to become Derek's HERO).  Let me tell you, this man is awesome.  He came straight out and said that our son was very sick.  They new what the problem was and they were working to correct it.

Dr. Falco informed us that Zachary has SVT - supraventricular tachycardia- and they were working to correct it.  He told us that they had given him some baseline heart medications, but they weren't stopping the SVT, not even with shocking him!

Yes, you heard me right.  They were shocking my Little Man's heart... A few Many Many Many times!!!

He also told us that Zachary's PH level was really low.  He explained to us that a normal PH level was around 7.35-7.45 and that a deadly PH level was 7.1.

Zachary's PH level was 6.7... My Little Man had been dying... In fact, if he hadn't gotten to the doctors when he did, he probably would have been worse off, if not the unmentionable!!

Okay... I'm sorry to have to leave this entry at this, but both my kids are up and I'm having to get them lunch.

I'll try to finish this story with another entry later tonight, if not tomorrow!!  I'm also off to get my hair done today... Woo Hoo.

::HUGS::