The excitement for the day happened when Kate and I visited at night. When we got there Henry was resting very peacefully. We decided to let him rest rather than waking him up to hold him. We noticed that his temperature reading on the isolette was rather low. However, there were problems with his temperature probe earlier in the day so we didn't think much of it. The probes regularly become detached and some isolettes just don't read very accurately.
When Holly arrived we were going to take Henry out and give him a bath for the first time. Holly decided to take a temperature before hand to make sure he was up to the task. She could not get a reading from the thermometer. She tried another and then another and still could not get a reading. It became clear that the isolette temperature reading was not wrong, he was cold, less than 95 degrees.
He was wrapped in warm blankets and the temperature in his isolette was turned up. He warmed up rather quickly. However, Kate and I feel awful that we left him in there for 2 hours thinking he was being nice and calm when really he was probably near hypothermic. Apparently Kathy felt very bad about it as well. She called in a couple times during the night to check on him.
The big question is what triggered the sudden drop in temp? His isolette had been set at a fixed temperature a couple days ago and he seemed to manage his body temp just fine during those days. He had pulled out his feeding tube around 8 or 9pm and it is possible that he got wet and that triggered the episode. However, it was also a possible sign of infection.
Kate called after we got home and asked that they do a CBC (complete blood culture) to see if he had an infection. It appears there is no infection. However, his hematocrit is very low, 23.5. This means the number of red blood cells in his body is very low. If it gets too low they give him a transfusion. He has been transfused before with levels of 29.5 and 26. It is reasonable to assume he will get a transfusion today since he is well below that.
They hold off on the transfusions because if they give him red blood cells his body won't make it's own. The level of red blood cells needs to hit a certain low threshold to trigger the body to make more. They don't want to transfuse before he hits that low threshold because it is better for him to make his own. However, it seems that at some point they decide that his body just isn't going to do it and that's when they give him a blood transfusion.
It is rather disturbing that if Kate hadn't asked for it, he would not have had the CBC and it would have been Sunday before they checked is hematocrit level again. So again it seems to prove the point that you can't blindly put your faith in medical personnel. They can do great things but they have many patients and tend to like to follow guidelines for "normal" patients. Dr. Cahan has said in the past that you can't trust Henry and she is right. He is a special guy and doesn't fall under many categories that can be considered normal.
So what should have been a great day turned into a pretty crappy one. Just when we were feeling like we could let down our guard and maybe even take a day off we get this wake up call. It certainly could have been worse but it can't be good to be that cold for a couple of hours.
We've been pretty lax on getting pictures lately. The area he is in is pretty dark most of the time so it is really hard to get a decent picture. However, this one from last night turned out pretty well.
1 comment:
Hey guys! Just wanted you to know that we appreciate the constant updates on Henry. You are so good at being descriptive and consistent. Sorry it took so long to get signed into the blogger thing, ( I tend to be pretty lazy on the computer)! We continue to pray for your family as well as Henry's doctors and nurses. Hang in there.
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