Starship Childrens Hospital

We are in Starship with 8 day old Hunter.  How did this happen?  How did we get here?  What went wrong?  What did I do wrong?

At this point we still don't know what it is that is making him so sick.  

Starship is amazing and horrible.  I don't think I will ever forget sitting in the emergency department, Hunter was still in his capsule strapped onto the ambulance stretcher and a little boy about Coopers age (12 months) walked past towing a trolley with an oxygen tank on it.  This moment it all became real to me.  We were the parents of a child sick enough to be at Starship.

Soon we were visited by the Liver Specialist.  He gently told us that Hunters Liver was very sick and failing.  They were going to give him platelets as a "bandaid" for his Liver until they could figure out if it was the virus that was making the liver sick or if the liver was sick and making the rest of him sick.   

Next we were transferred to PICU, Pediatrics Intensive Care Unit.  A place that shouldn't exist or at least a place we shouldn't be visiting.  

We had to wait a long time while the doctors and nurses hooked Hunter up to all sorts of machines, they had him in just a nappy and I was concerned he would be cold.  The bassinette had a heated mat under him and a heater above so he wasn't cold.  It's funny the things you worry about when so much more major things are going on.

A room was given to us in Ronald McDonald House.  Would we be here for a while?  

Throughout the day we were seen by every specialist doctor they had.  Both of our families had arrived now so we had all the support we needed.  

Nobody should see their baby the way we were looking at Hunter.  

Mathew and I had not slept in over two days but we would not leave Hunters side.  We sat and talked to him and held his hand the whole day.  I would continue to change his nappies and wipe his mouth when he dribbled the sticky glucose that was being given to replace milk.

Later that day Hunter started having Apnaec episodes where he'd stop breathing briefly.  A mask was put over his mouth and nose and he was started on CPAP.  The mask was tight around his head and I hated it.  It was too tight. 

Hunter was having blood taken every three hours to keep an eye on his platelet count and to hopefully capture the active virus that was doing this.  

We still had no answers.