
I’m going to write this from my perspective because I don’t know how else to relay the events of the last 48 hours. Some of you have heard the story and many of you have just heard bits and pieces. Either way here is the story about Claire (Autumn is helping me write this and wrote this nice transition sentence).
I’ll start with where we are now: Claire is at Medical City Children’s Hospital in Dallas, Texas after a near drowning event on Sunday. We have a lot of questions about all that took place and here’s what we do know about that first hour:
- Claire didn’t have a pulse for 30 minutes;
- When the practitioners did get her heart going again, she could not breathe on her own; and
- Claire’s little body was fighting to stay alive.
Doctors quickly determined that Claire needed to have more advanced care and she was transferred from Las Colinas to Medical City. The admitting doctor at Medical City spent a couple of hours stabilizing Claire which involved an additional complication when an air pocket materialized around her left lung. The exceptional care providers at Medical City were able to extract the air from around her lung and avert additional danger. Tiffany, Autumn, Heidi and I were waiting in an adjoining conference room and had the comfort of a medical assistant and our close friends Jon and Becky while the doctors took care of our daughter.
The knock that announced the doctors also brought the plan for the next two days. To reduce secondary damage from organ and brain inflammation and to decrease toxic blood circulation, the doctors would lower her temperature to around 93 degrees Fahrenheit for 48 hours. These 48 hours also denoted a waiting time to see what the extent of her injuries were from the blood toxicity and oxygen deprivation.
Claire had also aspirated some stomach acid and the doctors were concerned that the fluid could lead to a bad case of pneumonia. To extract this fluid, Claire has been attached to a percussion ventilator since she was admitted to PICU: a nurse described that this was like turning a baby on her stomach and striking between the shoulder blades to expel the fluid. It worked. On Monday night we received the first bit of positive news that Claire’s X-ray showed no signs of lung fluid. The doctor was confident enough to lower the pressure support on her ventilator: Claire’s body is equipped right now to breathe on its own with minimal assistance.
There are many more details in between but it’s best if I tell where we are right now. We were scheduled to start bringing Claire’s body temperature up to normal levels today at 5:00 PM CDT. Claire didn’t want to wait that long. About three hours before five her body started self-regulating and began raising its own temperature. The doctor expressed that he isn’t concerned, but they’d like to slow down the warming up process. Her temperature is now back down and we’ll slowly bring it back up to normal.
How I want this blog to work is that if you have questions, please feel free to post them in the comments. I will be checking, updating and responding as time is available (it gives me something to do to keep my mind active). I will be posting updates as they are available.
Thank you for all your prayer, thoughts and support. It has been overwhelming.
Love,
Tyler, Tiffany, Autumn, Heidi & Claire