After stopping at home to pick up clothes and toothbrushes, we arrived at Children's. It was well after 7:00pm when we finally arrived. We ran into Leslie (the transport nurse) at the elevator and she told us that he made the trip without any complications and that he was being stabilized. We were greeted at the door to the NICU by Dr. McKuen, the neonatology fellow on shift. This happened to be her last night at the hospital! She would be going to another hospital to become an attending physician. |
Dr. McKuen talked to us at great length about what was probably in store for little Mitchie. After evaluating his condition and examining his X-rays, the surgical team did not feel it was immediately necessary to operate on him. Instead, they administered IV fluids and three broad spectrum antibiotics. We thought then that maybe Mitchie would be okay after all. |
Susan was Mitchie's nurse that first night. That night we would also meet Drs. Gore and Sephi, neonatology residents. We asked alot of questions about his condition and what we could expect. |
We spent the first night in the NICU/PICU parent waiting room on love seats that were just way too short to sleep on. Not that we could sleep anyway. We would end up visiting with Mitchie a few times during the night. |
The next morning was Memorial Day Monday. The cafeteria was closed and we had little choice but to eat out of vending machines. As if things weren't bad enough, our vending machine fruit had mold on it. Fortunately, we were able to take a shower. Marilyn (the waiting room attendant) was kind enough to give us a locker and some towels. |
Mitchie's primary nursing team would include Lenora, Lisa, Kay, and Mona. Lenora would have Mitchie on Monday. His X-rays did not indicate that his condition was worsening but clinically he was getting worse. Vickie and I ended up going home to sleep Monday night. Susan had him once again. This would be her last night there for about 6 weeks. She was absolutely wonderful and very gentle with Mitchie. |
Tuesday was absolutely terrible. Liz and Christine took care of Mitchie that day. As we were about to scrub up to go see Mitchie, we met Dr. Powell for the first time. Dr. Powell would be Mitchie's surgeon. He informed us that Mitchie's condition was worsening but that they would continue to evaluate. Later that day he told us that he thought it was time to operate. He had consulted with Dr. Lotze, the attending neonatologist at the time, and they decided it would be the best thing. He said the risks of not operating far outweighed those of performing the surgery. |
Liz asked us if we would like to contact our clergy. It was then that the seriousness of the situation really hit us. It was then that we started crumbling into even smaller pieces. Vickie and I discussed it for a few moments and I began tracking down Pastor Scott to see if he would come to the hospital. We had only begun attending our church for a month or so before Mitchie was born. |
After reaching him by way of his wife Becky, Pastor Scott reached me on my pager. He was actually a couple hours out of town but said that he would be with us as soon as he could. He arrived sometime around 4:00pm and it was then that we held each other around little Mitchie and dedicated his fragile life to the Lord. He would finally go to surgery some time before 6:00pm. Dr. Powell said the procedure would take a few hours. It was Tuesday, May 31st. |
The anesthesiologist Dr. Barbieri came up to begin anesthetizing Mitchie just before they transported him to surgery. We'll never forget the resident who started bagging Mitchie with oxygen. He was totally out of his element. Liz firmly suggested that he bag Mitchie like a premie and not like an adult. |
That evening a few of our friends showed up at the hospital to be with us. Our neighbors and good friends Bob and Anne came along with Mark and Luke. Pastor Scott stayed with us while they were there. We all prayed for Mitchie and for all the other children in the hospital. |
I remember talking to Karen then for the first time. We had seen Karen several times during the past few days, in and out of the parents waiting room. One of Karen's sons, Matt, was in the hospital battling a cystic fibrosis related respiratory complication. Her other son also had cystic fibrosis but seemed to be doing all right. We stopped seeing Karen after a while. We don't know how things worked out for them ... |
Mitchie came out of surgery around 8:20pm. Dr. Powell came to us in the parents waiting room to let us know what happened. The surgery had gone well. He told us, however, that he had to remove a very, very small part of Mitchie's small intestine and more than 75% of his large intestine! He also said that they had a difficult time putting him back together since he was so swollen inside. Mitchie would have retention sutures in place to hold his incision together. |
Dr. Powell created an ileostomy as part of the surgical procedure. Mitchie would have to stool into an ostomy bag directly from his small intestine until he was big enough and well enough to have his small intestine reattached to what was left of his large intestine. |
Mitchie would be under a drug-induced paralysis for several days to prevent him from moving around. He would also receive medications to control his pain. Dr. Powell told us that how Mitchie did over the next 10 days would be critical to his long term recovery. |
We met Kay that night, one of Mitchie's primary care nurses. She was absolutely wonderful and we knew she would take good care of him. Mitchie was pale and bloated from all the fluids they pumped into him during surgery. He would have to pee off all the excess fluids over the next several days as part of his recovery. Since he was paralyzed, he received respiratory support from a ventilator from which he would have to wean. |
The next several days were tough. All we could do is sit there and be with Mitchie. It was so hard to see him just laying there and not moving. He was attached to so much equipment. Mitchie would be on the ventilator for the better part of a week before he could breathe on his own. He came off the ventilator on Monday, June 6th. |
Just when we thought he was recovering, the nurses informed us that Mitchie's right lung had collapsed. For the next week or so, they would have to perform physical therapy on his little chest to stimulate his right upper lobe. They used the equivalent of an electric toothbrush with a pad on it to vibrate Mitchie's chest. Eventually, Mitchie recovered nicely. |
The key to Mitchie's recovery would be to keep him free from infection for the next several weeks, no average task. Dr. Narkewicz would be the attending physician for Mitchie during the month of June. She, along with her residents, and the surgeons would be watching Mitchie's small intestine through the ostomy. |
It was difficult to handle Mitchie with all of his IVs, the bag, and all of the alarms. It was unnerving but we began doing alot of the well-baby tasks like bathing him and diapering him, etc. All we had to do now was wait for Mitchie to get bigger and stronger so that the surgeons could reconnect his small intestine to what remained of his large intestine. |
Over the next several weeks we developed relationships with a great many doctors, nurses, workers, and parents like us. One of Mitchie's surgeons, Dr. Gilbert really comforted us and always answered all of our questions. He told me that he was actually an engineer before he decided to become a surgeon. We really grew to like him alot. Usha was the unit receptionist and she always looked out for us. She even brought us dinner once. |
We met Terese, mother of Travis, a little boy who was born a full 15 weeks early. Travis had Mitchie's complications and then some. He was a real fighter and his Mom and Dad were there with him every step of the way. There were so many children and so many stories. Some had wonderfully happy endings, some were devastating. |
Since Children's is a teaching hospital, we saw a new rotation of interns and residents every month. This drove us crazy. We grilled all the new doctors and I think we gained quite a reputation for being "hypervigilant" as one of the doctors noted in Mitchie's chart. Soon after they realized that we read all of Mitchie's chart everyday, the doctors must have requested that his long chart be removed from his room. Going forward, we only had access to Mitchie's daily flow sheet. We became quite the little doctors ourselves. In fact, Dr. Lotze asked me if I was in the medical field. How about that. |
We spent so much time in the NICU that we even started watching out for other children, too. |
