EM’s Excursions: A Medical Emergency

By Emilie Parten, The Reporter on the Rove

Having a sick child is one of the hardest parts of being a parent. As a mother of two, it’s not uncommon for me to deal with fevers and upset tummies and endless comfort cuddles. I have been truly very lucky that my children are among the healthy a majority of the time. My daughter’s troubles came when she was a newborn, as she failed to thrive and we had to find ways to make her gain weight as brand-new parents that didn’t know what we were doing. She is still tiny at eight years old but she is healthy and energetic and so brilliantly smart.
Her little brother has had a little more in the way of health trouble, with respiratory issues that have spanned since he was born but have never been bad enough to cause any major concerns. When he gets sick, it seems to stick around just a little longer than normal but all in all, he has been perfectly fine in his short six years.
Imagine my horror, when, after five days of fevers and inability to keep food down, he still isn’t better. We took him to a clinic and are told, based on his symptoms, he may have appendicitis so we are sent to Navarro Regional. NRH runs blood cultures and does a chest x-ray and CT scan and tells me they definitely think its appendicitis, oh and by the way, he has pneumonia too but we can’t treat him here so we are transferring you to Dallas. In just a few hours, what we thought was a bug that he just couldn’t kick had suddenly turned into an impending surgery, something my husband and I have never had to worry about facing with either one of our children.
We are transferred to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, where our son is admitted to the surgery floor. Before 7PM, we have seen multiple doctors and are more and more confused as to what’s happening. His vitals aren’t stabilizing even with medications and fluids and now the doctors aren’t sure he has appendicitis at all. We end the night with a move to the PICU floor where my boy is under constant care and is already getting leery about nurses coming in to poke him with more needles. Our first night is sleepless and flooded with an unhealthy amount of coffee.
The doctors order an EKG and an echocardiogram because they are hearing something in his heart that is concerning them and they find damage to his heart muscle that’s causing it to not squeeze the way it should. I will admit, I broke down. I could no longer keep composed when face with the prospect of such an important organ failing. Heart problems are no joke and facing the possibility of losing my six-year-old son broke me.
He had contracted RSV and Rhinovirus/ Enterovirus which had evolved into pneumonia and had caused excess fluid around his heart, making it work harder. He was diagnosed with Myocarditis, an injury to the heart muscle caused by certain serious infections like the flu, RSV or Covid, which could lead to heart failure. This injury could be something he has to work around for the rest of his life or he could recover and live almost as if it never happened. His doctors are hopeful for the latter and point to his improvements after just one week as a sign that things will be well.
This is an excursion I would have been perfectly content to never go through, one I would not wish on any parent or child but I will use my experience to tell you this: if your child is sick, take them to Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. Each and every member of the team who worked with us was knowledgeable, patient, thorough and encouraged us to ask questions. I was told over and over that we were in the best possible place for our son, that if something was going horribly wrong with him, the doctors at CMC would be able to help him. And, after eight days in their care, I can confirm, they were relentless in finding out what was wrong with my boy and made sure my husband and I were involved in each and every step of their plans to make him feel better.
The hospitals design is tailored to its demographic, with plenty of play areas, themed rooms and specialists hired with the sole purpose of playing with bedridden kiddos so they don’t feel as trapped and bored while they receive the best possible care. they offered us support, recommended us a place to stay while our son was receiving treatment and took the best possible care of our entire family.
My son is home now, happy to see all of his favorite toys and sleep in his own bed. And, while I hope we don’t have another instance like this, if we do, I know that we can trust CMC to take care of us.

About Author

navcochron

See author's posts