It was supposed to be Laura’s first day alone with 12-day-old Nash. Her fiancé Devon had returned to work and her mother-in-law had gone home, and she was looking forward to a day of cuddles and bonding time with her new little love. When he was fussy and refusing to feed, and had been that night before too, Laura called 811 for breastfeeding support. The calm but quick-thinking nurse on the other line asked if Nash’s lips looked blue, and they were, so she said for Laura to call an ambulance and head to Emergency at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. That could be a sign his oxygen was low. Within five minutes in the ambulance, Laura watched her newborn baby crash. When they arrived at the hospital with lights and sirens, Nash was taken straight away to a trauma room.
While a social worker comforted Laura, doctors and nurses surrounded Nash. Suspecting first an infection, they gave him antibiotics and IV fluids. Soon a pediatric intensivist was called in who determined Nash was very sick and prepared Laura for the possibility the problem was with his heart, and that he may need to be put on Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS), a heart-and-lung bypass machine.
Worried his heart would stop, doctors placed Nash on a breathing machine and transferred him to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), into a resuscitation room. An ultrasound of his heart showed it was not working well. Then, as the ECLS team was activated, Nash went into cardiac arrest. The team performed CPR, using the CPR Feedback machine funded through Radiothon, to guide them to provide the best quality CPR for him to be put on ECLS. ECLS was the last resort, and Nash’s only hope. And while his parents watched him hooked up to too many cords and wires to count while a machine took over his heart and lungs, all they could do was hope. Thankfully, because of a team of pediatric intensivists and donors helping them establish an ECLS program at our hospital in 2011 – the first pediatric noncardiac surgery hospital to do so – Nash’s life was saved that day.
Still on ECLS, Nash was transferred to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton – the province’s pediatric cardiac centre. He was found to have a heart rhythm condition called Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and put on medication. When his heart was strong enough just three days later, he was able to be removed from ECLS. After 10 days total in Edmonton, he was discharged home.
Today, Nash is thriving. He is one of 57 kids who are alive today thanks to ECLS at our hospital. His family is grateful to take part in this Equipment Power Hour for a state-of-the-art ultrasound for the ECLS program to save more children’s lives.