In the hospital

Well, it's day 6 in the hospital... for those of you who have not heard, I will update. Last weekend Macey started to make heavy breathing noises while crawling. I kept an eye on her and Monday night into Tuesday, I could hear her breathing pretty much all the time. I made an appointment to see our family doctor on Tuesday and he sent us for x-rays. They said she has pneumonia (which was not the case). Anyway, we were sent home with some antibiotics and breathing treatments. Wednesday came around and things got worse. Her breathing was more labored so I called our doctor and he said to go to the ER and have some blood drawn and check her out. We went back to the hospital where she was in the NICU at just in case she would need to be admitted.

When I got to the ER, she was seen right away. No waiting for the baby who is breathing horribly!!! There was an instant swarm of hospital people around her and they were testing everything possible. She was sent for a chest and neck x-ray then to get a CAT scan. The results showed swelling between the spinal cord and throat. We spent 8 hours in the ER before being admitted at 11:00 that night!!! What a long day! After admitted, she was put on steriods and antibiotics as well as many other breathing treatments to try to reduce the swelling. By friday, her white count had gotten much better but her breathing (although better) still sounded horrible. We spent the weekend waiting a little longer for the swelling to completely go away but there was little change. She had a bronchioscope done Monday which showed two possible reasons for the labored breathing. One looked possibly like a cyst which would be easily removed by laser or cutting it out. The other is much more serious called subglottic stenosis which is a narrowing of the throat below the vocal cords. This damage would have been caused by her being on a ventilator when she was first born. She is scheduled for surgery on Wednesday the 27th at 10:15. They will then do a central line, then another scope to pinpoint the exact problem, then surgery to correct it. If it is a cyst or something else similar, the recovery time will be 3-4 days, but if it is the subglottic stenosis, it will be reconstructive surgery and she will be here for 2 more weeks, the first being on a ventilator and sedated.

All of this is still sinking in and is a lot to handle at this point. We are trying to focus on the end reasult... a happy Macey with no breathing trouble! I will update when I get a chance after the surgery tomorrow. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.