Location: Toronto
Health status: total surprise heart crash
After accidentally ordering 2 ubers, I marched into the hospital bright and early. A smiling nurse greeted me with news that Maeve had been scream crying for me for the last 2 hours. Her “stranger danger” fear was in full force.
I lumbered through a morning of holding her and changing a hundred diapers of small sharts (aka. poop-farts). Needless to say, I was counting down the hours until Dana’s arrival with the truck and extra clothes.
As the morning progressed, I started noticing Maeve was getting more agitated. She couldn’t settle herself, kept retching and reached a screaming volume I had never heard.
The team was fast to respond trying all different ways and tests to see what was going on. At the time their response didn’t feel fast. I kept repeating to anyone that was near by, “This isn’t normal. Something is wrong”. I was met with reassuring, “Yes, we know. Something is very wrong”.
In hindsight, I think the nurses were quietly escalating Maeve’s status behind my back.
Finally, one particular doctor took a very assertive stance. She refused to let anyone touch Maeve.
“She needs to calm down! Any agitation is putting stress on her heart and she doesn’t need that!” I vaguely remember her commanding.
The doctor paced the tiny room, blocking any people that wanted to examine or poke Maeve. Out of my peripheral I heard her say in a low tone, “Let’s get the resuscitation cart in here. I want us to be prepared for anything”.
Carts started wheeling in. People started filling the edges of the room. Me and the bedside nurse were doing everything we could to soothe Maeve. The edges of my eyes started burning as I tried not to panic. “Holy fuck…. it’s happening again”, my mind started repeating.
Suddenly I was flanked by 4 doctors and was told they were going to do a procedure immediately to get lines into Maeve’s artery and vein. They needed to give a series of drugs to prevent heart from failing. I was told to stay with Maeve and keep doing what I was doing.
Everyone started gowning up. Maeve’s IV rack went from one drip machine to seven. Soon Maeve was doped up. I was shuffled back a row, gowned and found myself in the odd position of being next to the room’s only light switch.
Doctor: “Lights on please”.
Me: “Uhhhh” (I click the switch).
Doctor: “Lights off please”.
Me: (click)
I spent the next 30 minutes doing exactly that. The procedure took over an hour. Half way through I left realizing my dizziness was due to the fact I hadn’t eaten anything other than a bagel 9 hours ago.
Dana met up as I was mid-sandwich bite. He later told me I was the same grey as Maeve’s torso. He knew immediately why I hadn’t responded to any of his texts during his drive up.
“She crashed again”.
Eventually, we were let back in to see Maeve. Our little munchkin looked like a character from The Matrix with lines coming out of her thigh.
“She’s not good”, said the staff doctor. “Remember how I said if we need to put in a breathing tube we run the risk of cardiac arrest? Well, we need to put in a breathing tube. She needs whatever help she can get to take the load of her heart.”
He spent some time explaining the change of plans that would need to take place given Maeve’s sudden crash. They would need to do surgery as soon as possible. The next 2 hours carried the highest risk of cardiac arrest in which case there was very little intervention left other than putting her on an ecmo machine.
The on-call surgeon, a wizen looking gentleman, came over to explain what repair they were going to attempt with surgery. The words “high possibility of death” was said at least 5 times along with “stroke”, “heart won’t restart”…
Soon the breathing tube was put in. No crash.
One hour passed. No crash.
A fever spike. No crash.
Two hours…
Blood work was showing Maeve’s status was improving.
Around 11pm, our doctor told us to get some sleep. “Maeve’s in a spot where I think you should feel comfortable enough to get some sleep. You’ve got a long road ahead of you”.