Kyle Ellis
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I wish I could say that my pregnancy was uneventful. I had lost three other pregnancies to a Progesterone and Thyroid deficiency that wasn't discovered until just before I got pregnant with Kyle. To help carry the pregnancy I had to take hormone replacements. At about 15 weeks I started to bleed, my normal sign that my body wasn't going to carry the baby anymore, only to find out that I had Placenta Previa and had to go on bed rest for over a month. After these hurdles the rest of the pregnancy was a breeze....until the delivery. I was a week past my due date so I was hooked up to the monitor at my regular doctors appointment. Kyle's heart rate had no real ups and downs, it was just steady, so I was admitted to the hospital for further monitoring and an ultrasound. Everything came back normal so they decided to induce me. After two days of Pitocin and dilated to a fingertip with only 30% effacement we were off for a c-section. As soon as Kyle was out they knew something was wrong. Due to my bicornuate uterus he was wedged into my pelvis, and his head was chin to right shoulder, left ear to left shoulder. Since he didn't take his first breath my anesthesiologist had to intubate immediately. The initial thought was that his airway was pinched due to positioning and because Kyle was on room air and otherwise healthy we spent the next 5 days trying to extubate, but were unsuccessful. At this point Kyle took his first flight from Mercy Medical Center to UCSF. The day after we arrived they performed a bronchoscopy and diagnosed him with Laryngomalacia and put a small breathing tube part way down his nose to apply C-PAP. Two days after this tube was placed Kyle's airway became compromised and he crashed. My husband and I watched in horror as they reintubated him and did chest compressions. Our stay at UCSF was 26 days total. Most of which was waiting to see if Kyle could outgrow his problem. He had one laser surgery to remove excess tissue from the arytenoids and was sent back to his home hospital to wait a month to let swelling decrease and hopefully be extubated successfully. When the day arrived and Kyle failed we were already prepared to fly to Lucille Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford for a second opinion. We spent 10 1/2 weeks total at Stanford. We did everything we could to try and prevent the need for a Tracheostomy, seven bronchoscopes, excision of tissue on the aryepiglottic folds, a Nissen Fundoplacation with G-tube insertion and many steroids. Kyle was finally extubated and made it three weeks before having another life threatening episode. On 9-1-99 the Tracheostomy was performed due to paralyzed vocal cords and two weeks later we were able to come home. Kyle spent a total of 4 months and 1 day in the NICU. He has physical therapy two times a week since his head still wants to turn slightly to the left and we are dealing with the gross motor delays of being hospitalized for so long. Occupational therapy comes once a week and seems very optimistic that he will eat by mouth in the near future. The rest of the time his daddy and I enjoy him immensely.
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- New Pictures of Kyle, August 2000
- http://hometown.aol.com/crssypooh/myhomepage/photo.html
- Christine Ellis
