Prayer Vigil for Stellan & an update from MckMama

Hello prayer warriors! This is MckMama's friend, MamaBear, with an update on Stellan. Actually the update comes from MckMama herself, I'm simply getting it posted for her because she isn't able to connect to blogger right now. Another of MckMama's friends, Esther, has graciously offered to set up another prayer vigil for the MckFamily. Thank you for your prayers everyone!

"MckMama here. Prince Charming brought me my computer so I just logged on as I sit here watching Stellan sleep. The internet here blocks Blogger and Twitter, so I cannot post to my blog myself. I can Twitter with my cell phone, and can view my blog, and read your comments and your emails, which I may get around to doing later tonight. But I will be having others post for us, or I will be exclusively Twittering about how things are going, so be sure to check my lower left sidebar if you don't already follow me on Twitter.

As far as what's going on, basically, I am a wreck, and it's hard to make sense of this all. I will be totally honest. I am freaked out and terrified. But in the midst of it is God's peace and it's just something I cannot describe.

Stellan had a really bad night. He barely slept a wink and didn't nurse almost at all. I kept thinking, "Hospital." all night long as I silently begged for him to nurse and start breathing better. His breathing went from bad to worse and by dawn's early light, Prince Charming and I could see that he was grey. He had no voice left to cry with; he is totally hoarse. He was just crying silent screams. I took him right in to the clinic after I called them and asked to bump up his 2 pm appointment. They said to bring him right in. He was even more grey by the time we arrived and his oxygen sats were between 70 and 72 (They should be 100.). The doctor and nurses brought him into the procedure room and started giving him oxygen and a neb. On the second neb, some mucous must have come loose, because Stellan started choking. During what ended up being his least severe of three episodes today in which he quit breathing, the doctor called the ambulance. When the paramedics arrived, they strapped me to the gurney, I held Stellan (He was choking in his car seat, so they gave up on transporting him that way.), and they administered O2 as they wheeled us through the clinic and onto the rig.

Stellan was a "red" (Needed to be seen right away, as opposed to a "yellow" who could stand to wait a few minutes or a "green" who was well enough to sit in the waiting room.) and a "code 3" (Meaning the ambulance took us to the hospital with lights and sirens, as opposed to a "code 2" meaning the ambulance just drives with traffic without warnings lights and sounds.)

All hell seemed to break loose at the hospital. They whisked him away to an examining table. I watched doctors surround Stellan, sometimes hearing shouts of "Start breathing, baby boy!!" It was terrifying and I wanted to cry, but didn't at that point. The nebs broke up more mucous and then it would get clogged in Stellan's inflamed airways, and he suffered two more dramatic breathing lapses. Watching that was the worst thing I've ever experienced in real life and I can only imagine what it felt like for Stellan.

After about two hours, he was more stable, but still retracting (Sucking his lungs in as he struggled to breathe.) dramatically. His ph is all off balance and he's very hypercapnic/acidotic. That means he has too much CO2 in his body because his lungs are not working to rid his body of it. The nebs have not seemed to have helped much after the first two rounds he received in the ER.

Here is Stellan when he was stable and having some heart tests this morning:

He will be having a heart consult soon, but the doctors are still in agreement that he is not in heart failure and that there is no relationship between his severe RSV struggles and his heart trouble in the womb. RSV affects some kids worse than others. When Small Fry had RSV last winter, it was scary, but nothing like this. She was no where near as sick and, to be honest, this is by far the more terrifying health scare we've had with any of our kids, aside from when Stellan had such severe hydrops in the womb.

They transported him from the ER to the ICU (PICU, actually...Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) at the Children's Hospital (The one connected to the hospital where we delivered Stellan.) In the hallway, he went into bradycardia (Slow heart rate. His was at 49 bpm.) and they worked on him in the hall for a bit. Now that he's in the PICU, he's been stable but not where he needs to be. His blood gasses need to go down (They were near 80 at first, now in the 70s, but should be at 40. That is, amount of CO2 in his blood.), but they aren't coming down enough. It's as if the nebs aren't really working, the Intensivist (Doctor who specializes in Intensive Care...there is always one on here in the PICU. Also, Stellan has his very own nurse who is constantly in his pod with him.) and his body is giving up. They almost intubated him (Sedated him and put a tube down his throat to help him breathe, also called being on "the vent.") twice, but have kept holding off. He is "right on the border" of needing to go on the vent. Stellan "needs to turn the corner tonight," his doctors keep telling me. Going on the vent is not without its risks, so they are holding off until absolutely necessary.

For now, he's on compressed oxygen in his nasal cannula, with O2 being forced in at increasingly higher concentrations. As his blood gasses go slowly down (Good!), his need for more help breathing keeps increasing (Not good!). It's just a wait and see game as far as going on the vent. He'll also be getting a central line put in tonight (it's an iv in his neck where they can also draw blood, because he is getting his blood gasses checked Q2 , which means every 2 hours,)

Prince Charming and our other kiddos just left; they visited for a short while and brought me some things and said hi to Stellan. I will be staying here at the hospital with Stellan, at the very least for tonight. At the point, the doctors are telling us that Stellan is "very sick" at to look at perhaps 7 to 10 days in the hospital as he fights this.

Begging God for our son's life and health, while still feeling an overwhelming peace about whatever happens reminds me of this summer when Stellan and I were in the hospital. It's an uncomfortable, yet calmingly familiar feeling to have this deja vu. I can't explain it, exactly.

It was so good to see my husband for a bit (He's home now to put the others to bed.) and so comforting to know that God will never leave us. He is here, I know He is protecting our son, and I trust Him implicitly. He has brought us through fires before and, one way or another, He will bring us through yet another!

Is it wrong to just wish I didn't have to have my trust in God tested so often? But I know from our past experiences that we are closer to God for all our struggles, so I can choose to praise Jesus even in this.

Thank you, Jesus, for Stellan. Thank you that You never leave us and that You have Your almighty hand on our son. We trust You with his health, ask You to please help him turn the corner with his illness tonight, and thank You for the opportunity to give all glory to You, no matter what happens."