Intussusception, Brendan's Story. LONG *Distressing for some*
Brendan appeared unwell on Wednesday (1st June), I figured he was just having an off day. On Thursday he appeared to be a bit more normal. Friday morning he woke up with extreme stomach pains and diarrhoea (around 7:30am). I took him up to the hospital to be checked out, figuring it was probably gastro. We got seen to by the triage nurse, she checked him over and then we were put in the waiting room. We were informed the GP wouldn’t be in for another 2 hours, so I decided to take Brendan home and see our regular GP later in the day. By 9:30am the vomiting started.
Our regular GP said it was most likely a viral gastro, which is going around, to keep up fluids and lots of rest. She suggested buscopan to help with the pain, but other than that there was nothing we could do. Friday night Brendan slept in his bed with a bucket next to him, he didn’t sleep very well at all and I was up every ½ hour with him. He was still in a lot of pain and vomiting. Saturday he spent all day on the couch complaining of a tummy ache and vomiting. He was starting to get really lethargic and was unable to keep anything down. We offered panadol, hydralite drink and hydralite icy poles and all came straight back up.
Saturday evening I took him back to the hospital where we saw a different GP, but the same nurse. Brendan was very lethargic by this time and his breathing appeared shallow. The GP said it was gastro and nothing they could do but offer him water to drink. He offered to admit Brendan but said they would only offer water. So I took him home, as that’s something I can do. On Sunday morning he had finally done another poo, but this time is was black and tar-like. I knew it wasn’t right and had heard black poo can mean blood. I took him back up to the hospital at around 10:30am, seeing the same nurse but a different GP again. The Dr took one look and Brendan and told us he needed to go the PMH (children’s hospital) he felt his tummy and told me it was an intussusception. By just after midday we were finally in an ambulance on our way down.
We arrived at PMH around 2pm and taken straight to the emergency department. We were seen by several Dr’s who suspected a burst appendix (appendicitis), colitis or the intussusception.
At about 4:15 Brendan had a massive vomit which smelt like faecal matter. We were then sent for an ultrasound at 4:30 where they discovered not only an intussusception but that it had ruptured and Brendan had faecal fluid floating around in his tummy cavity. They also realised just how dehydrated he was, his veins had collapsed. He was taken straight up to theatre and by 5:30pm they started. While Brendan was in theatre they took me to his room on the ward so I could wait there. Originally they told me the surgery would take around 2 hours. It took nearly 3 hours to repair and clean everything. Brendan lost 15cms of his bowel because they were unable to save it all. Unfortunately it had started to die.
Back on the ward and Brendan was on 3 different antibiotics, morphine, panadol and fluid. He was a very very sick little boy, but he was on the mend. He was making some very small improvements and starting to look a little better. On Tuesday they removed the NGT which had been draining his tummy (bile). They hadn’t got anything out since the previous day so it was thought his tummy was working again.
However I just couldn’t shake this feeling something was wrong. The Dr’s and nurses were very reassuring everything they did showed no signs of anything being wrong. Brendan started needing oxygen to sleep on Tuesday. He also started on TPN (feeding directly to the veins) on Wednesday. On Thursday they sent him back to theatre to put in a PICC line (goes in the arm, up the vein and directly to the heart) so they could remove his canula and femoral line, that way we would be able to sit him up and maybe even stand him up!
Unfortunately Brendan’s tummy hadn’t been working as well as they thought and 20mins into the procedure he vomited in to his lungs causing his lungs to collapse. His right side completely collapsed (he also formed a hole in the right side from resuscitation efforts) and left side partially collapsed. Meanwhile I was waiting for news, a 1-hour procedure and I had heard nothing after 1 ½ hours. I just knew something was wrong. The ward clerk called me back to the room so the Dr could come and chat, I told him I was outside the theatre and wouldn’t be long. That rang little alarm bells too, why would the Dr talk to me in Brendan’s room and not at the theatre… I just knew something was wrong. The surgeon was fantastic, he was so apologetic and explained everything to me. I started to pack everything up and was then taken to the PICU. Brendan was on a ventilator and heavily sedated. Things were not looking very good at this point.
I haven't actually written about his week in the PICU, terrifying does not even come close to describing what happens in there. I wrote a blog post called "I'm sorry we've done all we can..." I think that's about as close as I'll get to writing his PICU journey for now. He spent a week in the PICU on the ventilator, the first 4 days were the hardest days of my life, he was on max oxygen, max drugs, etc and still only just getting through the minutes. For the first 4 days he not only had a nurse by his side at all times, he had a Dr there too, even then he was very unstable. In the 2.5 weeks he was in hospital for Brendan fought a perforated bowel caused by intussusception, infected and perforated appendix caused by the intussusception, sepsis, aspiration pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis, encephalopathy (from all the drugs he was on in the PICU), ear infections, thrush, staph and a few other nasty infections.
My blog post "I'm sorry we've done all we can...":
:
That’s one sentence that no parent person, should ever have to hear, especially when it’s your loved one they are talking about. Being inside an Intensive Care Unit is scary. It’s noisy, it’s sad, it’s horrible… especially when it’s your own child laying there so helplessly. As a parent you are supposed to protect your children, you are supposed to comfort them and you are supposed to try and take away their pain. All that is taken away from you in the ICU, the only thing you can do is sit and talk to them and hope they are listening.
Children are supposed to be running around the backyard, they are supposed to be eating proper meals food and they are supposed to be getting dirty. It is just not natural to be tied down to a bed and so heavily sedated, it’s unnatural to be attached to machines that are keeping them alive.
People tell me that I coped really well and that if they had been in my situation they would have fallen apart, but I don’t believe that for a second. As a parent I did what I had to to get through a terrible situation. I stayed strong for my boy, I stayed strong for me and I stayed strong for my family. Anyone would have done the same.
I wanted to write about Brendan’s PICU stay, but I’m not entirely sure where to start. What happened in the PICU was terrifying, especially when the Doctor who was assisting Brendan’s nurses tells me that horrible sentence… “I’m Sorry We’ve Done All We Can…” what the? How are you supposed to answer that? How are you supposed to cope with that? What are you supposed to do? What was I supposed to do? I hope no-one ever hears those words ever again.
We are so lucky, our boy has proven yet again that he is supposed to be here. We love you Brendan.
Brendan has just started back at Kindy for the first time since he got sick back in June and is doing really well. He's since has another operation to remove his tonsils and adenoids and to insert grommets. Hopefully one day I'll write his PICU story up properly.
