What happened to August and September?

 

August was a blur for the three of us here. We got back from our North Myrtle Beach vacation and had about a week of getting back into the swings of things and then we got a hard realty check.  Wyatt ended up getting sick at the start of August and thankfully he is now 100% recovered, but August and most of September were not a walk in the park.

 

The first weekend in August was brutal.  That first Friday morning I noticed these little red spots on Wyatt’s chest and then saw them on his hands too. I did what any mom would do and went to Google because we all know how awesome Dr. Google is. Well after searching the verdict wasn’t that he had the plague, but these little red dots called petechiae could be a serious issue or they could be from him just straining/ crying. The day prior he had a total meltdown in the car to the point that I had to pull over and try to calm him down… so the crying/straining was a possible cause. Petechiae is essentially bleeding under the skin. I called Scott to let him know I was going to call the pediatrician because I didn’t like the little red dots.

The pediatrician confirmed its as petechiae and from there we went to have his first of many blood draws.  No more then 10 minutes after the I left the Lab, she called to let me know that his platelets were undetectable and that we would be going to the hospital for what would most likely be ITP.  ITP in a nutshell means that he has low platelets and no one really knows why.  It happens in young children and sometimes it goes away in a couple days, months or years.

In that 5-minute phone call from the pediatrician, our happy little world changed.  I held it together for the phone call with her and then started crying afterwards.  I called Scott to figure out where he was going to meet me since he was at work.  I went home to pack clothes and things we would need for Wyatt, Me and Scott for the next several days. I didn’t really know how long we were going to be at the hospital. I had to pack up Bentley as well since he was going to my parents so they could take care of him.  I met my mom and Scott at a Kroger’s parking lot, traded off Bentley and off to the hospital we went.

 

Our Hospital Stay

We had a hospital stay of about 3 days and let’s just say we were happy to get out of there. I am not going to go into detail on what went on at the hospital with his care. There are amazing Doctors, Nurses, and some that aren’t so great. I know many of our couples are in the medical field and are all amazing and towards the end of our stay we got matched up with some great people that were helpful.  We are currently with a couple great doctors and we love the nurses that we work with at the clinic with him.   During the hospital stay we were told everything from – Oh, its a lab error because he looks way to healthy for having his platelets undetectable, to ITP, to it must be a blood syndrome or something in our genes and then finally they looked at viruses.  He finally got treatment with a platelet transfusion while we were in the hospital, he was going downhill quick and I am glad he finally got treatment.  Watching him get IVs was not fun. It was painful for him and he didn’t have any idea what was going on – how could a 3 month old know what is going on.  I just know that I will never forget the look in his eyes during one of the more brutal IVs – the IV team was doing their best to make it as quick and painless as possible, but he had already been stuck about 10 times in 48 hours and the look in his eyes was just horrible. It was a pure pain and scared look and not knowing why this was happening in his eyes. I hated it.  Thinking about it now makes me start to cry because that image is burned into my brain and I hate that he had to go through any of it.

Everyone at the hospital and during the process kept saying “ its good that it happened when he was so young since he won’t remember” I know that when people said it they had the best intention – but I wanted to get upset when people said that.  No child should have to go through this, it sucks to have a baby that is sick and have to be in the hospital. Yes, he won’t remember it, we will, but it just plain sucks is the best way to put it.

After that first platelet transfusion, we were able to go home.  They still didn’t know why his platelets dropped, if they were going to recover with the transfusion or really, what was going to happen. That was okay with us.  At this point, it was Monday morning and I just kept thinking literally Friday morning  – 3 days ago everything was normal. A few weeks before that we were on vacation and totally normal! It was all just nuts.

 

Coming Home

I ended up camping out in Wyatt’s room. We moved the mattress from the spare room into his bedroom because we were told to monitor him for internal bleeding, any outward bleeding, temperature checking and making sure his stomach didn’t get bloated (another sign of internal bleeding or blood in his stool.)  Totally normal stuff that everyone checks their 3 month old for.  So, I slept in his room for about 2 weeks. Let me tell you he makes a ton of racked in his sleep. Scott stayed in our room with the monitor turned up on High so if I needed him or Wyatt needed him we could easily wake him up.

Scott stayed home from work for that time as well because since we got out of the hospital we were going to the clinic almost every day to check his platelets and have a transfusion. He had a total of 5 platelet transfusions in the course of several weeks. During that time we chatted when a genetic counselor to see if there was any family history of bleeding disorders.  We knew of none and the genetic counselor pretty much said most of the disorders you would know about if you had it.  They still wanted to test us for a couple of different syndromes, which was fine. We were totally cool with taking as much blood from us as needed if it saved Wyatt from getting another prick.

 

The Outcome

They ended up testing him for several viruses and that is when one of them came back positive.

CMV.

I had heard about it actually on a baby forum when I was pregnant. Everyone seemed to be terrified of getting it, but no one knew if they were positive or negative. It isn’t a virus that doctors normally check for when you are pregnant. You would have to request it. I never thought much of the virus because the general thought process is if you get the virus while pregnant, they could not do anything about it. So I filed it away and went on with the pregnancy.

Cliff notes on cmv – it is like chicken pox in the sense that once you get the virus it stays in your body for life. It usually causes no symptoms or they are so mild like a cold that If you get it you think ‘ oh I have a cold ‘ for a couple days and move on with life. If you are pregnant and get it for the very first time in your life as your primary infection, it can have serious complications to the developing baby.  People with weak immune systems can also have more complicated reactions to the virus.  There is no cure for it.  Some of the main issues with congenital CMV is problems with hearing and eye sight, along with a small head and low birth weight.  If you get it later on in life and not in utero then you most likely do not develop any hearing or eye problems. Now take the cliff note version with a grain of salt because I am not a doctor and not claiming to be one or an expert on the subject. We have spent a lot of time researching and talking with Doctors to find this information out.

Since the CMV test came back positive we most likely have an answer for why his plates dropped. According to one Doctor any virus can drop your plates and this is most likely how Wyatt’s body reacted to the virus.  They aren’t sure if he got it while I was pregnant or after birth. They are leaning more towards after birth because obviously, our 9lb 7oz baby was not tiny, he passed his newborn hearing and he did have a brain ultrasound that showed no calcification of any blood vessels.  They still aren’t sure how or when he got it and the general outcome is that we may never know where he got it from or when.  The rough incubation period for the virus is thought to be 1-2 weeks. We don’t know how quick his platelets dropped after he was infected. Between month 2 and 4 he was out in public, at public pools, out of state, went to Scott’s work, at church, in a nutshell he was out around people like any other normal baby.

 

Getting Back To Normal

It took about 2 to 3 weeks to get Wyatt back to “normal” after we got home from the hospital.  He had always been really happy and a good baby during the whole process, but his personality did change a little.  He hated being laid down and for good reason – At the hospital and clinic whenever they laid him on the bed is when he would get the IVs and be held down. So he started to really only be able to take naps while was being held and he would wake up from naps crying.  He would usually go down at night without any issues; it was just during the day that he had it rough.

He looked healthy and acted happy during the entire 2 months. If you didn’t see his spots or all the bruising from the Iv’s and tourniquets for the Iv’s then you would never know there was anything wrong with him. We could get him to laugh and smile like always when we were home.

We have tried to carry on with life as best as possible during everything. Scott went back to work a couple weeks after this all started. I had meetings, Engagement sessions and we had 3 weddings to shoot in August and 4 in September so on the photography business end it was busy!  We had a little weekend off last weekend and that was pretty much the first time that we got to really hang out and not dread Monday since we didn’t have to go to the clinic for labs. We could enjoy sat and sun as a family and do normal stuff like go hiking and hanging out.

After his 5th transfusion, his platelets started to stabilize.  After each transfusion, he would usually be around the 90,000.  Normal range is 150,000 – 300,000, so nowhere near normal, but much better then 2,000! The last transfusion he got he went home with 70,000 and dropped down to 30,000, but then slowly went up to 40,000, then 60, and then 70,000.  During all of this Scott went back to work and came to all the hospital appointments. The appointments that Wyatt had to get transfusions were rough because those were anywhere from a 6 to 8 hour day at the hospital, plus the hour drive there and hour drive back.  All 3 of us were always exhausted after these days.

 

 

We just had his platelets tested last Wednesday and they were 170,000!  That means that he is in the normal range.  We can only imagine that he is going to continue to increase his platelets to get even more within the normal range.

Our family and friends have been awesome during this time! We know so many people were thinking and praying for Wyatt.  Thank you so much!  Our couples are amazing and I am so thankful that we get to photograph so many wonderful brides and grooms all of them totally understood what we were going through and had patience with me when it took me a couple days to get back to them. We couldn’t ask for better couples to be working with for 2016 and 2017.

 

Here are some pictures of Wyatt as of October 3rd!  We had a little mini shoot on our bed!