Friday, March 22, 2013

Cayden's heart

Back on June 22 it was just a regular morning. Cayden had been coming down with what appeared to be allergies the day before. He hadn't eaten yet that morning and was running around the kitchen and being his usual crazy self. He decided he wanted to go onto our bed but he had no pants on so I was telling him he needed to put his Pj bottoms back on and that's when things went crazy. I try so hard to remember the details but in times like this when you aren't expecting anything to happen its hard to remember them. All I remember is him starting to act fussy and whiny and I started to walk over to him to try and get his pjs on as he was climbing up onto our bed when he started to cry and then he started to act really strange. I knew instantly something wasn't right so I picked him up in a cradle position and I couldn't even get him to look at me. I ran down the hall to my mom who was in the kitchen and said there is something wrong with cayden. By then he was pale and turning blue. I handed him to my mom and ran to dial 911. My mom laid him on the floor and in a matter of seconds he started to regain consciousness. Luckily the police and firemen came extremely quick and by then Cayden was still pale but totally aware of everything around him. He even ran out the front door the minute the fire trucks pulled up because he was so excited to see them. The firemen walked right by him of course not even realizing that was the child who minutes ago was not breathing. We went ahead in the ambulance which he loved and checked into the ER. They did chest X-rays as well as an EKG and blood work. Nothing could be seen so we were told to go home. Now words can not explain the anxiety and fear I felt for the next several days. I don't think the fact that I am pregnant helped one bit. Not an hour would go by where I would think about it, or worry that it was going to happen again but possibly worse. I literally thought there was a chance my little 2 year old could possibly die at any moment.  This incident had happened in the past but was what we thought due to the fact that he fell on his chest.
We took him to the doctor the next day and he thought it did not sound normal and we should get him to see a neurologist and cardiologist. Over the next several days the anxiety and fear was definitely still there but starting to fade. And then on January 31st we had another incident. I was teaching the mommy and me fitness class and the kids were out running around playing. Cayden again that morning was not in the mood to eat and I had wondered if a cold was coming on. The only thing he had was a cutie tangerine. He tripped and fell and then walked slowly around for a second then wanted me to hold him. I picked him up and knew right away it was going to happen. Luckily I knew this time to lay him on his back left side which I did instantly. He started to go pale so I ran to my phone to have 911 ready while Tammy did everything she could to keep him conscious, and she did! After a minute or so he was able to sit up and then wanted to run around but I was not going to let that happen. That time I called the doctors and we went straight from workout. By now you can imagine I was a mess. I was finally feeling like maybe it was just some fluke thing to my son could possibly have something seriously wrong with him. He developed a bad case of pink eye within that hour on both eyes and got a horrible cold. Luckily we were at the doctors so he prescribed eye drops(not a fun experience) and wanted us to go to the lab for some blood work to see what he has allergies to.( again a really bad experience) That whole weekend he was pretty much a zombie which honestly was kind of nice because then it was easy to keep my eye on him. He pretty much watched movies and would sleep, he was miserable.
Luckily while we were there at the doctors we were able to find out we had approval to see the neurologist and cardiologist. I of course got right to it and called to make appointments for both which would be at the Los Angeles Children's hospital. Making appointments was not an easy task and it took many phone calls to both the doctor's and hospitals to make it happen. I was finally able to get appointments which made things worse. The Neurology was scheduled for February 20th and the Cardiology for February 26th! I seriously had no idea how I was going to be able to wait that long and there was nothing I could do. About a week went by and then a miracle happened. My mom happened to know someone who is one of the board of directors at the hospital. She told him our situation and he made some simple phone calls and like that we were able to get in for both neurology and cardiology on February 12th! I can not tell you the stress that left my shoulders that day.
Unfortunately I never really took any pictures while all of this was going on except on the cell phone. This was the day he had an episode the second time. We had just left the doctors and went over to the lab to get his blood drawn. You can see the pink eye was getting bad and no lie, a couple hours before they were completely normal.

The day we went to the Children's hospital was a long, crazy day. We had to wake up super early because we had to be there around 7 which was not fun and they wanted Cayden to be tired so he would fall asleep during neurology(i did not think that was going to happen for sure). We thought Cardiology which was first would be a breeze and were really nervous about neurology. Well we were completely wrong. He screamed and cried about the whole time they were trying to do the ultra sound. He was a little scarred from the stickers they put all over your chest and stomach because a week earlier he had them with the EKG and they did not come off easily so taking them off was not fun. Besides the stress of trying to get him to stay calm, it was really interesting to see his little heart. Everyone was thinking it sounded like a heart problem so I was anxious to find out if they could see anything and sure enough everything was fine! Everything looked great! The cardiologist who we really liked thought it might be SVT. She in fact has it. It is not life threatening and surgeries can be done to fix it but she even said he may just grow out of it. She also suggested to make sure he gets food in his tummy every morning =). After a few hours there it was off to Neurology. Cayden did such a great job in there!
Luckily they don't do any type of sedatives there and Cayden loved the people that were helping him. I had to capture this picture. He was cracking up because he was helping the guy by handing him the cotton balls and was going a little too fast. He even fell asleep in my arms ( i loved that) which was shocking. They even gave him a remote control race car(which he has already broken) but it was so sweet. The next day we had the lovely task of driving BACK to LA to get the Neurology results and again, nothing! I still have my fears and some days its worse than others, but I was told to let him be his normal crazy, run around everywhere, self, and I have. Thank goodness we have not had any other episodes. I am just grateful he is healthy =)
Also his allergy results came back shortly after being done and we found out he has a slight allergy to shrimp, stronger allergy to molds, and oak trees which unfortunately are all around us where we live and a few other random things.

1 comments:

*Lauren* said...

So glad you got in so soon and had those test done. It's not easy. Very happy both test came back that he's normal and healthy. Great news! It's very weird that he has had those episodes. What does STV or SVT mean? Is it like fainting or seizures? You're a great mommy watching out for him :)