Cardiac arrest, recovery…

So because of the pericardial drain we had to stay in the Intensive Care Unit, as they can handle the drain and have more staff to monitor it. It turned out to be the best place to be at. Saturday morning, Liam was doing fine, but didn’t get that relieve he got from the drain last time. He was currently at 4 Liters of pressure on the High Flow machine, which helped him breathe. They also found out, that he has some blood in his urine, but nothing really that concerned them much, urology said, he has more serious problems than that. During the day his breathing rate got faster so they increased the pressure on the High Flow to 6 Liters, which helped for a while. The westher, for once, was beautiful, which gave Tiffany the chance to go out to catch some fresh air, we both haven’t been out of the hospital for a while now. I got my turn after she returned as we didn’t want to leave Liam without at least one of us. My parents supported us of course and were in the hospital all day long too.

Liam’s belly seemd to get bigger and so his breathing got worth, the increased the machine further to 8 Liters. The told us Liam was probably leaking from his blood vessels into his tissue because of all the inflammation going on in his body. That’s why the belly was getting bigger. The day before we jokingly said why they wouldn’t just drain the belly. That was becoming a reality as it really hindered his breathing. They said they would wait until Sunday morning, as they wanted the day shift to be around unless of course things would get much worse. They also had to gather some information regarding the Car-T study and whether they were able to leave the drain in and still be eligible. He was doing ok for now.

In the evening Matt and Katie visited us and brought the most delicious food, baby back ribs, mac & cheese and buffalo wing popcorn, it was amazing. We really enjoyed the company. Meanwhile Liam was sleeping.

so as the night progressed his condition got from bad to worse breathing-wise. His heart rate was 170, his blood pressure was high and his breathing rate was in the sixties. They tried to help him increasing the HighFlow, in the end it was on 20 Liter which is a lot for such a small kid, but he really struggled breathing. Pain medicine helped in the early stages of the night, but not as the night progressed. At around six they decided to call in interventional radiology to do the procedure in the ICU. First they wanted to put Liam on the mask, but quickly realized that won’t be enough to support him as they checked his blood gas levels which changed their minds and they decided to intubate him.

They were really concerned how he was breathing and wanted to relieve him of working so hard. To intubate, they had to sedate him, as Liam fell asleep we left the room and waited in the family room/kitchen. After a couple of minutes the attending doctor came and told us everything went well and he is breathing fine and is relaxed. They were waiting on the doctors to do the procedure. We just had a funny feeling after she left and some minutes later we heard an announcement we won’t ever forget. It was February 18th.

Code Green, Forest A, Level 6, before they finished announcing we really hoped it wouldn’t be Liam’s Room 322. She continued the announcement, Room 322. Seconds later people were storming in from everywhere, one doctor shouted, I don’t know what’s happening, but we’ll let you know, as she ran by. We had no idea what was going on and it’s still hard just thinking and writing about it.

Some people were casually walking back the other way and we didn’t know what that meant, was that good, was that bad?! The Attending Doctor came back and told us, that we should follow her back to Liam’s room, Liam’s heart had stopped. When we turned the corner there were dozens of people in and around Liam’s room. When we arrived at his room we saw someone performing CPR on top of him. We were petrified. We were helpless and couldn’t do anything except wait and hope, that his heart starts to beat again. There was already a social worker there waiting for us, but we didn’t feel like talking, we just wanted someone to tell us that he’s going to be fine. After a while, 13 minutes to be exact, the Attending approached us again and told us that they have a heartbeat again and that his saturation is fine again. What a relief! But suddenly all this questions come up, will he be fine again, what about his brain, did it get oxygen during CPR? They couldn’t really tell us at this point, but said they started CPR right away, which is very important. During CPR they put the drain in his belly which released the pressure, which was probably one problem, that was causing the arrest. They immediately drained over one liter from his belly, which is quite a lot for such a small kid. Every couple of minutes someone updated us on his condition. They immediately did an Echo of his heart and X-Ray of his lungs, both looked fine. As time went by more and more people were leaving, which was a good sign. At that point we were able to go back into Liam’s room. He looked like a completely different child, all puffed up and a lot of blood everywhere. But he was doing ok, that was the most important thing.

The started the post cardiac arrest protocol right away. They put him on a cooling blanket, gave him medicine to keep fevers away, put in an arterial line to messure his blood pressure and draw labs, put on an EEG to messure his brain streams and lots of other things. After about an hour or two he was already opening his eyes again and was responding to us and was even able to answer questions with nodding. They were stunned, that he was already doing so good. They continued to be impressed by Liam over the next days and how fast he was recovering. First they thought his brain waves were a bit slow, but they more important sign was, that he was very well responding to us and in the end the MRI of the brain showed no abnormalities. That was another very big relief. He once again showed us all that he is a big fighter.

His breating was also improving and after a couple of days they were able to remove his breathing tube again.

All the staff was very supportive and caring and did an awesome job handling the situation and still have time to think about us. My parents were also always by our side and Matt and Katie came by frequently to chear us up.

During that time, Liam’s godfather was visiting us from Switzerland, as soon as he heard, we were going to Seattle for the treatment, back in Novemerb, he promised to visit us. A true friend. He also got me into playing the ukulele.