Oofduh...another backstory.

A couple last minutes with
Daddy

Whew...I don't even know where to start! But now that I've finally got a few minutes together that I can stop taking in information, it's time to put some out again.

I've dubbed myself the queen
of inappropriately timed
selfies...Ambulance selfie!

Today's blog really starts yesterday. It started out perfectly normally, when I got Brandt up at about eight, fed him his bottle, and then went in to weigh him and take his sats for the day. For some reason, his sats weren't getting to where they usually were, and at first I figured that it was just a fluke...maybe I didn't get the sensor on tight enough? This kid's feet are getting so chunky that sometimes it's hard to get a good read. But after readjusting it a couple times, the numbers were still low. Lately, his had been in the high seventies to low eighties, but this particular morning, they were dipping into the mid-sixties. Concern prompted a phone call to Dr. Ruggerie, and when he didn't answer, I left a message explaining the circumstances and asked them to call back and tell me just how much to worry.

It's dark, but this is an
airplane selfie. I was getting
weird looks at this point,
so I had to be discreet, and
that meant less than ideal
pictures.

Half an hour later, just to be safe, I checked again. I had hoped it was a quick little thing that would resolve itself, but when the sixties started showing up again, and his face seemed a little pale, my spidey senses started tingling. Ruggerie didn't answer when I called again, so I called over to the pediatrician to at least get him seen by someone. "Sure, we can fit him in at 10:15."

By the time we got there, his sats were normal, and I felt like an idiot. I have a hard time figuring out where to draw the line between "worry wart" and "callus and unfeeling", so I have stuck closer to the front end of that spectrum with Brandt thus far, to the point that I have taken him in for a few unnecessary doctor visits over things like a stitch left in his belly button (turns out I could have just pulled it loose), a red spot on his chest (just dissolving stitches), a plateau in his weight gain (uh, he's already big for his age...no big deal), and it was suddenly seeming like a repeat of those past days. But thankfully, Dr Eskelsen saw some of what I saw--pale face, a little grey around his lips--and he believed me, and managed to get ahold of Ruggerie via cell phone. At 2:30, we found ourselves in his office.

When the nurse came in to do vitals and such, his sats were up to 85, he was pink and alert, and it looked like I was crying wolf again. But half an hour later when we saw the doctor, I could tell that he noticed something amiss. His physical examination took much longer than normal, and his eyebrows were furrowed as he worked, but he didn't tell me anything until the end of the appointment. "Has Seattle ever talked to you about something called 'blue spells'? That's what he's having." Blue spells are essentially just periods in which the body wasn't getting enough oxygen, and through a basic process of elimination, he determined that it was either the shunt or the pulmonary arteries that were acting up. He guessed that it was either clot related or the arteries were spasming for some reason, and restricting blood flow. But yes, he told me, it was serious, and it was a good thing I had caught it. Apparently my stomach had been in knots all morning for a good reason. But now there was nothing to do, really, but watch it. Since it hadn't remained under his norm for very long, it wasn't considered emergent.

I feel like they forgot about me when they were
casting for Top Gun.
Possibly because I wasn't even on the "to-do"
list back in 1986.

As we left the office, I touched base with Tanner for the first time that day...I hadn't wanted to worry him if there was nothing wrong, so until he got off work, he didn't know that I had been to the doctor at all. I filled him in completely as we ate the pizza that he had very graciously picked up on the way home from work. The evening was quite a bit calmer than my day had been until about 6:30, when, after his bottle, Brandt got fussy and refused to be soothed. After about twenty minutes of it, I hooked him up to the pulse-ox again, and watched his sats as they dipped...and tried to rise...and dipped some more. Over the course of about half an hour, they refused to jump past the 75 mark, and even hit as low as the mid-fifties again. Having that happen 700 miles away from the place where they could fix it was a little terrifying, so on the off chance that Ruggerie was still in the office, I called.  And he was, thank goodness.

An hour after I explained to him what was happening, we were sitting in an emergency room bay, having Brandt hooked up to a portable monitor, and preparing to catch a ride to the airport via ambulance to be flown to Seattle. We had put Wade to bed before we left, and asked a family friend to watch him while we were gone, but he knew something was happening and was still howling by the time we left. Poor guy.

Sleeping soundly through his echo

We were flown in a tiny six seat jet with three nurses and a pilot, and aside from one scary drop in sats (he hit 45 at one point...that was when they decided to put him on oxygen), it was an uneventful trip. I learned a lot about them via headset, most notably that one was a cat lady that grew her own catnip. They were very sweet ladies. They stuck with us all the way to the hospital, where they hung around until Brandt was situated in his new bed. Then the Seattle nurses took over, as well as an echocardiologist (is that even a word?). Brandt was so tired at that point that he slept right through the entire echo. Thankfully, they didn't find any evidence of clotting, so he was left to sleep after that. I curled up on my couch in the corner and went to sleep myself, although by this morning, I was really beginning to regret my decision to choose an old car horn (awoogah!) as my text alert.

It's really no wonder all the nurses love this
kid...whatta chunk!

So that leaves us where we're at today. And a lot of water has gone under the bridge since I've started writing this post, but this one has gotten long enough, so I'll save it for tomorrow's. For now, Brandt is doing really well! His sats are under control, and he's busy winning over the hearts of every nurse that crosses his path. Still don't know what the actual fix will be, but we should find out in the next couple of days!