The plan was at 12:15 to take Danny down so that they could insert this dye into him and then track where it goes. To do this they need to transport him down to radiology (I think) so he need to be put in a transportation unit to get there, only thing was Danny didn’t like it. To make his point he got very worked up and started to cry and as a result his blood gases got really bad and they had to abandon it in favor of trying again tomorrow.
Following the doctors rounds today they said once again that they are still concerned about the green bile that is in little Danny’s stomach. Despite the surgeon having looked over Danny twice and saying that he feels certain that his bowels are OK the doctors still believe that there may be a problem. As a result Mr. Davies has been over and is planning on putting a Dye into him to see where the Dye travels in the body to see if his bowels are indeed working ok, not too sure what will happen from there but I don’t think they do either. Since they have been unable to insert a suitable canular into him today his femural line is still in place and not removed as planned. Julie is again starting to feel really alone at the hospital, in her own words “I’m sick of being on my own”. I really wish I could be with her but thats just not possible as you can’t get sick pay when you work for yourself plus theres the kids. I feel for her I really do.
Danny has now been of the ventilator since 7am on 20th July, this means that at this point he has been off his ventilator for 3 days now. They currently have him on CPAP which just gives him a little pressure but he’s doing around 90% of the work for himself. Stayed at the hospital last night so as I could give Julie a rest as shes been working a constant vigil by his bed since he was born. A little while after I got down to him this morning he started getting a little aggitated so I tried to calm him and he was having none of it. Next his “sats” monitor, monitors his oxygen levels in his blood, stopped reading. After around 5 seconds he started to go blue in the face and his “stats” monitor kicked back in saying his oxygen was at 35% rather than the 90%+ that it should be. Alarms started going off as his heart rate was now down to 45bpm rather than the 170 that it had been. My heart began to sink but I had to stay for him, I just held his hands & head as they began to “bag him”, after what seemed forever (probably about 1-1½ minutes) they had him back up and decided that they will see if he gets himself sorted before they decide to re-ventilate him.
Well the school holidays are here which means Kyle & Bridie are over now for the next 3 weeks. Tom’s been loving it as he really misses them when they’re not here.
I finally had my first hold of Danny this afternoon. It was amazing, now holding your child for the first time is an amazing feeling whatever way you look at it but when you have spent the last 2 weeks hoping that he is going to manage to endure all of the suffering that he is going through knowing that you can't do anything for him. To finally be given your child to hold after all of this is just amazing, I couldn't take my eyes from him; he was just so precious, so tiny and despite everything….so perfect.
Just phone the hospital to check how Danny was doing off his ventilator and they told me that Julie had Danny out this evening, the nurse was changing the bedding so she just thrust Danny onto her so she didn’t have time to think about it. This was her first hold of him after 2 long weeks, she was so overwhelmed that she sat just holding him for 3 hours and then once he was back she spent the rest of the evening with a great big grin on her face.
When I got to the hospital tonight Danny had managed to pull out his ventilator again so they were busy trying to re-ventilate him again. When I finally go to see him the first thing that struck me was how pale my little boy was, he was almost white. The nurse said that he was going to be having a blood transfusion due to his colour. He was really alert tonight, when I spoke to him his eyes opened and he tried to look in my direction but as they had put him back on the morphine he was struggling to keep his eyes open. The doctors have decided that due to this evenings events they would see what he is like tomorrow and maybe try to get him off the ventilator then.
During the ward rounds by the doctors they said that they Danny may need a blood transfusion depending on the results of some tests. If he does not need a transfusion then they may try to get him off his ventilator but they will have to see how he is today.
Just after 12am Danny's ventilator pipe got blocked with the secretions from his chest. These secretions are caused by the ventilator pipe being in his chest, the body knows that it doesn't belong there so it produces a mucus to try and fight it off. As a result the blocked pipe meant he stopped breathing and as a result they had to re-tube him which took all in about 2hrs
When I arrived at this hospital this evening I was told that Danny had a easy day, he's been fully ventilated all day but it was only working when he was breathing himself with the occasional breath for him. Apart from this he's just been chilling. They have said that they may try to take him off the ventilator again tomorrow but we'll have to see.