Our Little Fighter

Today...

I am not sure how to describe today. I guess I can start off with saying that I am grateful to be on the closing end of the day.  And that I am grateful for the ways the Lord walked us through...and preserved my baby's life.

Jude's blood pressure problems worsened throughout the night.  By morning, his blood pressures were super low and his white blood cell count had rocketed to 57,000.  Oxygenated blood wasn't  pumping well throughout his body, and we could no longer feel his pulse in his feet.  It quickly became evident that our little guy is battling a pretty massive infection.  So, the doctors quickly began to treat him for meningitis. And, we were told that he might not survive this infection...that he might not survive beyond today. 

An echocardiogram showed a heart that looked basically the same as it had been looking lately.  That indicated that it wasn't a change in his heart that was causing the new problems.  There was, however, more fluid accumulated in the area surrounding his heart...most likely caused by the fluid shifts he has been having with his kidney issues. After the cardiologists looked at the images, they decided that they would take him down to drain some of that fluid off with a needle.

After accompanying our little guy downstairs as far as they would let us, we left him at the cath lab and went up to wait in Jude's room.  We were told that the procedure would be about thirty minutes.  While we waited, we prayed.  We took turns reading psalms.  We prayed some more.  I took some pictures of his room.  And we waited.

Thirty minutes turned into an hour.  An hour turned into two.  Eventually, we were told he would be up shortly.  Just before we saw our baby, the cardiologist who performed the procedure came up to let us know how things had gone.

This is what she told us:  Our little boy was doing okay, but he had scared everyone.  Soon after we had left Jude downstairs to come up and wait, they went to move him on to the table where they would be performing the procedure.  As soon as he was on the table, his heart rate and blood pressure dropped significantly and his sats plummeted.  Immediately, the cardiologist began performing CPR.  Jude was coding.  After five minutes of chest compressions, he started to stabilize.  They then proceeded with the procedure.

Soon after he was back in his room, he opened his eyes and looked around at us.  I can't tell you how sweet it was to see our little boy responding to us after he had just been through such an ordeal.  I can't tell you how much I love those little eyes.  Such sweet, sweet eyes.

The rest of the day has continued to be intense, but our little boy is fighting.  He still has low blood pressure, and they are giving him epinephrine along with countless other antibiotics, blood products, and medicines.  He is requiring two nurses for all that he needs right now.  Thankfully, they are wonderful.  We are both staying the night tonight...sharing a bed that is less than the size of a couch.

And now we hope and pray and wait.

Our baby almost died today.  The Lord has given us more time with him, and we are so thankful.  We don't know how long that time will be, but we want to make the most of all the time we have.  The Lord in so many ways prepared us for this.  We didn't know it, but He did.  You can see some of that in this post I wrote in early August.  His fingerprints are all over our baby boy's life...and our journey.

Please continue to pray for us.  We are pretty broken and tired...and grateful.  Please pray that the Lord would guide us in how to love our sweet pea as he needs to be loved right now.  And please continue to pray for our baby's healing.

Thank you.