 The day after I was discharged from the hospital we went to see Trevor. I couldn't believe what I saw when I walked into the neonatal unit. He was on a respirator and he had so many tubes sticking out of his little body that he didn't have the last time I saw him. It really scared me seeing my baby like this. The nurses informed us that they were keeping him in a drug-induced comma because he was "happier" that way. I wasn't sure if they meant he was "happier" in terms that his vital signs were better, or if he was happier because this way he didn't move around and set off the machines. I didn't ask because if it was making Trevor happy then I felt better. We kept asking the nurses when they were going to do the surgery, and I think it was at this point that we found out that the doctor that was going to do the surgery was on vacation and wouldn't be back for another couple of days. Had we known this at the time Trevor was flown there we would have insisted that he be taken somewhere else.
Finally when Trevor was four days old he had his open heart surgery. I don't remember how long the surgery took but it seemed like eternity. When the surgeon finally came out to talk
to us, he told us that when he was taking Trevor off of the heart/lung bypass machine he accidently tore one of the main arteries. He felt he had it patched up to where it wouldn't cause any problems but the next 72 hours would be the most critical time. I remember thinking, "that's only three days."
Trevor was on the respirator longer than the doctors thought he would be but by the second week they had him weaned off of it. He was finally showing signs of improvement but it was very short lived. On the second day he was having difficultly breathing so they put him back on the respirator. At this point everything started to go wrong, he developed a fever, he formed blood clots, his veins started leaking from so much medication going through them, and his kidneys were giving out. I knew something was going to have to happen real soon. Either the doctors were going to have to do something different or a miracle was going to have to happen. One of the doctors told us, "When Trevor is good, he is really good but when he's bad he's really bad." I was beginning to feel like we were taking one step forward and two steps back. We were watching all the other babies come and go, but not Trevor, he just stayed. He just wasn't getting better by the leaps and bounds like the other babies around him were.
We didn't know what to do anymore. They wouldn't let us hold him, they didn't want us to touch him because it would set off the machines and the sound of our voices made is vital
signs fluxuate so much. I had never felt so lost and out of control.
On July 5 the doctors decided to start Trevor on dialysis. He handled the procedure well and the doctors were very happy the way he was reacting to it. After a very long day the doctors
told us to go home and when we came back in the morning we would see a big change. On July 6, at 7 a.m. the hospital called and said we should come to the hospital. When we got there, our baby son was dead, he died without his mommy and daddy by his side. It was at this time that the doctors finally agreed to let us hold our son. Before we left the hospital, the doctor told us that his heart was the last organ to quit.
Though Trevor is not with us today, we keep his memory alive. There is a quilt square in his memory on the memorial quilt in the hospital, his aunt writes his memorials, and his cousins
place small mementoes on his head stone. Trevor will always remain in our hearts and in our minds. |
