Left Home again Sunday night, our little Owen playing with his toys pretending he didn’t give us a big fright earlier in the day
Sunday was a pretty awful day for us. Tony was having difficulty putting Owen’s nasal gastric tube down after it had been taken out. (it needs to be changed every week) Owen then suddenly stopped breathing. By the time I had the phone to call 000 he had gone blue.
I was talked through what to do and had Owen breathing again by the time the fire brigade (!!) arrived. They were very quick and were fantastic. Seeing the big blokes in their fire gear gently administering oxygen to the little baby was amazing. Owen was on the sitting room floor at this stage. When he had enough colour back we moved him into his room and onto the change table.
Tony’d rung the palliative care nurse and she arrived shortly after the ambulance so the house was full. The ambulance were a bit astonished that we didn’t want them to take Owen to the hospital as they said they’d never left a baby before. But we’re aware that once he gets admitted he may be put on ventilation which means he’ll be kept alive, but only for a limited amount of time and at a reduced quality of life to what he has now. It’s a tough call but one we’ve made.
Anyway we still didn’t have the tube in and it was hours since his last feed. I rang the NNU at the hospital directly, and we went in. There we were able to bypass all the emerg admittance things and just speak to people we knew and who knew Owen’s history and diagnosis. We were very relieved when we saw a nurse we knew well. She was able to help and get the tube in so we could feed him! She also told us that one can hit a nerve in a baby when trying to get a tube in that results in the baby stopping breathing…a useful bit of info now that we have it…
So much for a relaxing Sunday afternoon but at least we have Owen back, even though we know that this is an echo of things to come.
