About a month after his first surgery, October 11, 2006, I called the hospital because the monitor kept reading that his oxygen levels were 52% (it was 70% the day before; but, each day prior it was dropping a percent). At 7 weeks old I took him in to see cardiology.
It was discovered that the stitching came away from the shunt that they used, as part of the Norwood Procedure, to re-direct the blood flow. We were admitted immediately, do not pass go, go directly to Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and scheduled to be the first case the next morning, October 12th. During our stay, his oxygen levels remained at 52%. It was discovered that if I held him exactly in an upright position, literally, his oxygen levels rose to 70%. So for the rest of the evening, overnight, and following morning, until the nurse was ready to take in into surgery, my baby remained in my arms in an upright position.
He ended up on the heart-lung machine longer than anticipated; so, his kidneys took a hit. He lost kidney function for approximately 2-weeks. The doctors couldn’t tell me if his kidneys would come back, because they said that his case has never happened before; so it was a waiting game for all of us. After a couple of days, wait he ended up going on Peritoneal Dialysis until his kidneys back two weeks later.
We ended up staying in the hospital just over a month having been discharged November 18, 2006.
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