Some of you know this and some don’t but Jake had a setback and we had to go back in the hospital… PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). He had developed a dangerous level of jaundice. Anything over 20 is consider extremely dangerous because that’s the level at which it can begin to cause things like deafness, cerebral palsy and brain damage if they don’t treat it and get it down quick enough. Jake tested on Tuesday at 29.6. They told us that if they couldn’t get that number down through the IV treatment and the 24 hour a day phototherapy that they would have to do a blood exchange to remove part of his blood and replace it with new blood. Apparently he was at a much increased risk to develop this because he was so premature. Luckily we have a wonderful pediatrician who was very thorough with the testing and aggressive with the treatments.
We are finally back home and he has his own personal little “tanning” bed so we can continue his treatment here. We will have to go in daily to get a blood test to see if the number is continuing to decline but at least that only requires one needle stick each day instead of the 20+ he had in the hospital.
The doctor’s at ABC Pediatrics can not figure out why or how his number spiked so high so quick but they have ruled out all the rare newborn diseases that might cause this type of spike so we’re thankful for that as well as the fact that with the treatments… his number is steadily declining. The doctors at the practice said that he has been the main topic of conversation there this week and they simply have no idea how or why it happened but they are beyond thrilled that it’s coming down so well with the treatment. The pediatrician that we met with today said that he was on call our first night in PICU and that he was honestly freaking out because Jake’s number climbed to 29.6 and if it had moved above 30 that they were going to have to do a blood exchange. He said that he was “freaking out” because NICU is the place that does that most often so they are the experts but that since Jake had gone home first that they couldn’t readmit him to NICU which is why we ended up in PICU but PICU has little if any experience doing the exchange and it’s a very intense, dangerous process. Thank the Lord that he didn’t rise above 30!
We’re all tired but happy to be home and Jake is continuing to improve which is a blessing!
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Looking like a little pumpkin in Mamaw's hands.
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| This is not what I wanted to do today. |
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| Don't worry Daddy, I'll be okay. |
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| My very own home tanning bed. |
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| Happy to be home! |
