ICU « Struggling to Thrive

We settled in to KKI but the vomiting didn’t stop. Our son stopped being able to keep anything down at all, even water. The nurses were insistent that he was keeping some down, but they weren’t with him all day. I was adamant they needed to do something but wasn’t sure what exactly that something would be. After the weekend the senior doctor returned and checked on us early in her rounds. She told us he looked OK but she was going to draw labs just in case. Once she received the results that would inform whatever our next steps would be. I settled down with my son for a nap and did my best to keep him comfortable while they worked out a plan.

Within an hour a skittish looking nurse came and woke me up. When I say skittish, her face was completely calm. Her eyes looked terrified. She told me we were being transported. “OK… can I take care of this when my son wakes up?”
“No,” she said. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“Oh… OK,” and I started packing things as quickly as I could. The nurse reassured me that they’d figure something out as far as the items we had to leave behind. I barely got everything shoved into a bag before our son was being woken and loaded up onto the stretcher for transport. Apparently his labs had shown a significant amount of dehydration, even though he didn’t appear dehydrated when examined.

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If you haven’t read the rest of the story yet, start here.

We loaded our son into the car and left for the hospital. It was dark and rain was pouring down throughout the drive to the emergency department. Check-in went quickly. Our son was exhausted and still showing signs of difficulty breathing so it didn’t take very long to be seen. A chest x-ray was ordered immediately and we were settled in to wait for the results. No one seemed particularly concerned so we did our best to relax and wait. We expected to be given antibiotics and sent home.

The nurse came into our room and asked in an unusually timid manner if our son had been seen at one of the other hospitals downtown. We explained a consult we had at one point with an interventional cardiologist, but that we only went once and that doctor recommended against running any tests. I mentioned to her off-hand that we had also done several second opinions at Hopkins. “Why do you ask?” was the next obvious question. Micro expressions danced across her face, all showing signs of discomfort, and she pointedly avoided eye contact. We were to be transferred and they were deciding where. The doctor would be in shortly to answer any other questions. With that she ducked out, having not made any additional eye contact.

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