How We Found Out...

As you probably already know, Robynson is currently in Primary Children's Medical Center. This has come as a shock to MANY people - myself included! Everyone wants to know what happened, so that's what this post is about.

On Saturday July 25th, Robyn had been kind of whiney, but she was okay. After all, she was teething, so she's never happy when that's going on. Angie and I were going to the Derby in Heber and my mom had agreed to watch my kids while we were there. On the way to Heber, Robyn threw up water in Angie's van. I apologized and we took her to my mom anyway. My kids do sometimes throw up when teething. Robyn was whiney and sad while at my moms and threw up again a few time before we made it to Provo. Sunday she seemed whiney, but she was fine.

Robyn was good for a few days - she played like normal and ate like normal. Maybe a little whiney, but she was teething, afterall!

On Wednesday night, she threw up again, but it was after coughing so much that we didn't think anything really of it.

Thursday she was miserable all day. She just layed around the house and cried and whined. She didn't want to eat anything. Now, if you know my Robyn, you know that she has quite the appetite, so for her to not eat, I knew something was wrong. Something else unusual about the day was that she never had a wet diaper. I was trying to give her anything she wanted in a bottle, but she just wouldn't drink anything. She finally was acting like herself when Daddy came home from work. She ate some dinner, drank a little and was happy. Daddy does have that affect on Robyn. :) She was getting a little whiney before bedtime... That night we layed her down and she instantly threw up. No coughing involved.

Friday (early) morning, Robyn woke up crying at around 3am. I woke up with her and took her out on the couch. We watched some cartoons and she drank a little Gaterade that i gave her in her bottle. I took her temp (102 degrees) and was watching her breathe. I noticed that she was breathing really fast / hard. She just didn't act like she was feeling good and I got a bad feeling when I was watching her breathe. I decided that when she woke up if she wasn't acting better I was going to take her to the hospital.

She woke up around 9:30am on Friday and she still felt warm and was miserable. Still no wet diaper. I called Summit Pediatrics (or Heber Pediatrics), but their message said that Dr. Dave was out on Vacation. Robyn was too sick to wait so I made her an appt with a Dr. in Provo. Dr. Harris at Grandview Medical saw her around 12:30pm. Robyn had freaked out and wasn't wanting ANYONE to touch her. But she was coughing and Dr. Harris thought she could hear Pnemonia in Robyn. We discussed our options - from non agressive to agressive. After leaving the room for a minute, she came back in and decided that she didn't feel comfortable letting us go home and said she wanted to admit us into UVRMC for Pnemonia.

I called my neighbor, Shiree - who was watching Archer for me - and said that Robyn was being admitted to the hospital for Pnemonia. I called Jeremiah's mom and asked her to go pick up Archer (since she already had DarTanion) and explained that Robyn was being admitted for Pnemonia. At UVRMC, they started giving Robyn fluids for dehydration and took Chest X-rays to see how bad the pnemonia was. In the meantime, Jeremiah showed up. So did Lance, Shiree's husband. He's also in the Bishopric of our ward, so it was comfort to have someone there to help with a blessing.

The Doctor came in and looked pretty upset. She said that they didn't find pneumonia, but they saw something else disturbing. An enlarged heart so they ordered an Ecocardiogram. The Ultrasound Tech didn't talk much during the Eco and when he did, it was really quiet. Still, I guess I didn't know how serious it was. After the Eco, Lance and Jeremiah gave Robyn a blessing. After the Eco, the Doctor came in and said that they were going to transfer Robyn to Primary Children's hopsital because they were better equipped to handle this sort of situation. Her heart was approx as big as an adult male's heart and had fluid on it. They said it was only functioning at about 20% and that she was having Heart Failure. I immediately started to cry as they explained they were probably going to have to get Robyn to Primary Children's by Life Flight because it was so serious and they were afraid she might not make it by Ambulance.

Life Flight showed up and sort of took over from there. They checked her out while she screamed at them, but she would get so exhausted that she'd just give up after a few minutes. They strapped her to the carseat gurney and we followed Life Flight out of the hospital to the Helicopter. We watched them load, then fly away with our baby.

Jeremiah and I called our parents who got everything together and left to meet us at the Hospital. We ran home, grabbed a suitcase (thinking we would be at the hospital for maybe a few days) and stopped at Subway because we were both needing to eat so that we didn't pass out from hunger /shock / exhaustion. While at Subway we got a call from Life Flight that Robyn had landed and did great on the flight. She was in the Hospital on the ICU floor and would see us soon.

Both my parents and Jeremiah's parents beat us to the hospital. They were calming her down while she waited for us. We met with our Nurse Elizabeth, Dr. Costello and a Cardiology Doctor. They reviewed our family health history, Robyn's health history and everything they could think of. Then after a while, the Cardiologist said he believed what Robyn had wrong was either Viral Myrocarditis - heart failure brought on by a Virus.

The night was filled with Doctor visits, blood tests, lots of monitors and tubes, medicine, screaming and crying, no sleep, and me making myself so sick with worry that I was throwing up. Jeremiah and my Mom spent most of the night in the room with Robyn while I cried myself to sleep in the family waiting room with my Dad.

The next day they did an Eco again (they had to sedate her) and found that her heart was only functioning at 15%... She was still tired and angry, but at least she was fighting.

Okay, she's awake again and wanting to be held, so I will post more later. I still have about a week to catch you up on, but know that she's acting more like herself and eating and happy now. And we're off the ICU floor!!! :) Thank you for everything.