The Interstage Troubles 

It’s no fun when your baby has Rhinovirus (i.e: a cold). The most you can do is gear up for a few long, congested nights and dream of the day when a head cold doesn’t mean a week of sleep deprivation for the entire household. It’s not fun, but that’s as bad as it gets.

For single-ventricle babies, however, Rhinovirus means a hospital stay. There’s a lot of medical reasons why, but the gist of it is that respiratory trouble equals oxygenation trouble and oxygenation trouble affects the entire body. So, Liam needs help getting enough oxygen and, until the cold passes, he’ll be under close observation and on some amount of “flow,” though it may very well be longer. More on that in a minute.

While it is easy to feel sorry for ourselves- after all, we are 3 for 3 on celebrating holidays in a hospital room- he doesn’t have RSV (very bad for CHD kids) and we do have the best pediatric cardiologists and nurses watching out for our son 24/7 (God, I really hope we’re not here for a whole week). On top of that, we’ve learned Liam has gained enough weight (maybe too much? He does have cankles, after all) and we can scale back on the fortification of my breastmilk. Not only is that good news for our bank account (Nutramigen is not cheap), it means he has surpassed the cardiologists’ wildest expectations regarding growth. Yay!

Another unexpected silver lining to a head cold is the docs can get a good, real-time read on whether or not Liam has already outgrown the shunt put in during the Norwood procedure (good weight gain comes with a catch). Regardless of the answer, we’ll be better prepared and more confident of the surgery’s timing, hopefully bypassing any further unexpected hospital stays by evaluating his overall function now. 

If we do go home before the surgery, it is likely we will go home on some amount of oxygen to see us through to the Glenn procedure. The road will get a bit more complicated before it gets easier- as we knew it would, though not to this degree.

The lesson learned here is to expect nothing to go according to plan. Heart Babies like to surprise you and Liam, true to form, is mastering the art with an uncanny precision. At least he is cute doing it.



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