On Wednesday night after a bath Bradley was in his room getting dressed, being a typical little shit. He flung open his top drawer to get his underwear and the whole drawer came out and crashed onto his stomach. Of course it was the top drawer and was FULL of clothes at the time, I would estimate it fell from a height of 3 feet and weighed a significant amount for a little boy to have landing on his abdomen. At the time he cried but got over it pretty quickly and went off to have dinner and go to bed.
5am Thursday morning Bradley woke up screaming in pain. He couldn't move couldn't walk he was literally curled up in a ball rolling around on the bed in pain. And then he threw up-twice. Hubby arrived home from night shift at 6:30 and Bradley was still in pain so I took him up to the hospital.
He was still thrashing around in pain and screaming uncontrollably. I had to put the sides up on the bed to stop him from falling out. The nurse made the comment that he looked like he was in labour as Bradley was curled up in a ball, couldn't stand couldn't sit, toes curled up screaming in pain. His lower abdomen was very hard to touch as well, which is never usually a good sign. It was utterly terrifying to watch.
The Dr and X-ray people were called up (both were in the shower at the time!) and Bradley was taken through for an xray.
The scan showed nothing had been perforated but even more worrying Bradley's heart rate had dropped dangerously low. I was told for his age his heart rate should be between 80-100 and Bradley's was sitting on 50-55.
The Dr told me that when the heart rate drops that low after a trauma it can mean the patient is likely to crash...not what I wanted to hear!!
The Dr up here decided to call the head of emergency at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth. That person was very concerned for Bradley's health and told us we needed to immediately get him to Perth.
The Royal Flying Doctors Service was called and they made tracks to get to Paraburdoo-our nearest airstrip, 45 minutes away. It was about this time I tried to call hubby, he had dropped Kaitlyn at school but I hadn't heard from him since. I couldn't get a hold of him so I called a friend to see if she had seen him. She went on the hunt and ended up finding hubby in the shower :-/ oops!
Because I had the car at the hospital with me our kind friend chauffeured Phil around, he picked Kaitlyn up from school, packed a few things in a bag and came to the hospital.
I was told that I wouldn't be allowed to accompany Bradley on the RFDS plane as I couldn't take Isla (breastfed baby) with me. I'll admit I was upset but I understand the rules and restrictions on those kind of flights. So hubby was set to stay with Bradley while I tried to get a flight for me and the girls to Perth.
As we were leaving the hospital Kaitlyn decided she didn't want to come to Perth. She wanted to stay here and go to school. I was obviously worried about leaving her behind. I had no idea how long we would be gone for. But she was very confident and definite in her decision. So I packed her a bag to stay with friends, packed Isla and I some clothes and grabbed the boys clothes.
I couldn't get a flight out until 5:15pm, Phil and Bradley were leaving at 11am so I had a few hours to wait. And let me tell you the waiting was absolute hell! I was just hoping and praying that Bradley was ok.
I went to the airport a couple hours early and begged to get on an earlier flight. By some absolute miracle I did! I got on a 4pm flight. About this time my body decided lack of food and all the crazy stress levels were annoying so I got real sick! I was dizzy and shaking and the take off was terrible! I had a 33 week pregnant lady next to me offering me water and talking to Isla to keep her happy while I was trying not to faint.
Note to self: EAT when under stress!!
Finally 6pm I arrived in Perth and mum was there to take me straight to the hospital. I was so happy to finally see my boy and he looked soo good!! I was too late to be able to talk to any doctors but at least I could see him.
By this stage hubby had been awake for almost 40 hours straight!!
I hammered him with question after question about what the doctors had been saying.
From what I could tell the Drs were no longer concerned about his stomach, he seemed to have no trauma all the tests and scans came up good and the pain was slowly fading away-it seems it was kind of like a delayed shock and he just got a bit jiggled around.
But there were still concerns. Somehow someone had looked at his boy parts. Now I should mention a couple years ago Bradley had an operation on an Undescended teste. It was brought down and stitched down. But one of the drs noticed that he couldn't actually find it.
Friday we were sent for anther ultrasound-this time on his doodle bits. Bradley being Mr relaxed laid back and let the lady get to work. She couldn't find any sign of his right testicle so another Dr was brought in. The Dr spent a good 15 minutes with that ultrasound goo all over poor Bradley trying to find the missing testicle...she didn't find it either. So 2 more people were brought in. One of those people was the big boss lady. She was an absolute COW! She was the 'best' at her job and she totally knew it. She refused to answer any questions, actually she didn't even make eye contact with us. After about 15 minutes she said "it's not there, we can't find it" and walked out.
I must admit I was slightly amused-ok I was laughing. My sons testicle, that was supposed to be stitched down, had vanished. What. The. Hell.
Anyway so back to the ward we went.
Later that day a Dr was sent in to talk to us. I asked about his stomach and she said he was all clear.
I asked about his doodle bits and was told that his right one was gone, no one could find it, they literally had no idea what had happened to it. So I asked what we should do and they said 'it's not causing any pain or discomfort so we will do a check on him in a year' at the time I was so tired and just wanted to go home, so although I wasn't happy with that answer I kind of accepted it.
Then I asked about his heart rate. His cardiologist keeps telling me his heart is perfect. So why was he having problems. Every time his body was under significant trauma or when he had a really high fever and was sick his heart rate was dropping to scarily low levels. Again they couldn't answer this question adequately and told me I would need to go back to his cardiologist. This wasn't an option as an appointment can take months!
So we left hospital and I made an appointment with our GP to speak to him.
Firstly I shocked him by being back in the city-he actually thought I had permanently moved back to the city! He's not a country loving person and he almost shivers every time I mention how remote our little town is!! Let me add in here that I've been seeing the same GP since I was 3 and now all 3 of my little ones see him. He knows us VERY well and at times finds my family and our various health issues very amusing. He too was a bit amused at Bradley's missing testicle. He advised that once things had settled down we should take him in for another ultrasound to see if it can be located.
And then I explained the history of his heart rate dropping and was a bit shocked at what I heard!!
The Dr told me he has vasovagal. The way he explained it to me was he's similar to people that faint at the sight of blood. Whenever you're scared or your body experiences trauma a 'normal' persons heart rate goes up. That typical heart beating so fast you can almost hear it thing. In a small percentage of people the opposite happens. Bradley's heart rate slows down. A lot.
The Dr said to me "it's like the healthy fit sports players that just drop dead, that's what a lot of them have" gee thanks Doc that makes me feel good! Bradley's isn't that bad-yet. And in all reality it shouldn't ever get that bad. But in an even smaller percentage of people it does get that bad. And if it ever gets that bad he will need a pacemaker to get his heart kicking up a notch again.
But for now: his school needs to be made aware of the condition and so do all Drs. A medical action plan needs to be made for the school. If he ever has a big trauma or a massive scare he needs to lay down flat immediately. We need to make note of every time it happens and what triggers it. We also need to have a really good chat to his cardiologist in 3 years time when we go back.
It's actually quite a scary thing. At the moment his condition isn't too bad. I mean worst case scenario is a pacemaker and we are far from there. It seems to take quite a significant trauma for it to happen but it needs to be tracked closely so we can be one step ahead if it does get worse.
Saturday morning we were on the 7:30am flight out of Perth and on our way home with a very happy, healthy little boy. I was so happy to see my big girl again, she did so well and got so spoilt while we were away!
The help we had over that 3 days was amazing, we are so lucky to have amazing people that can drop everything to help us out.
My mind has been racing ever since I spoke to the GP. Bradley's condition sounds terrible, it definitely sounds scary and it's not what a mother wants to hear. But we are a long way off 'worst case scenario.' Bradley is still allowed to play sports and run around, he can still live a completely normal life and chances are nothing further will happen. When the Dr says it's very rare and only a small percentage of people get to worse case scenario I have a little giggle. The CHD Bradley was born with was a 1 in 1000 chance. The vasovagal is apparently even a smaller chance....we actually had better odds of winning the lotto than having a child with his particular CHD. But no, we can't win the lotto. We get the kid with congenital heart disease! Our luck just isn't great!
And thank goodness for the Royal Flying Doctors Service... We are quickly building up a massive pile of charities that have saved our children's lives!! Now that it's all over and done with Bradley has been enjoying telling everyone he went on a JET plane (hehe) I don't want to ruin his fun and tell him it was a teeny tiny non-jet plane...
Pirate Bradley with his pirate sword after a visit from some very silly clowns :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment