a day that brought me to my knees

During the course of this illness -- Tyler was placed on some very severe drugs to force him into a drug-induced coma. He was on nearly eight different medications for about ten days or so. During the weaning process of getting him off the drugs we noticed some odd behavior in him that we hadn't seen before. He began to shake like a person who was affected by Parkinson's Disease. He couldn't control his hands, his feet or his shoulders. He couldn't pick up his toy and he couldn't hide his eyes to play peek a boo.

The photo above shows the amount tubing that is inserted into his right arm. There are three lines in this one I.V. to allow numerous medications to be administered at once.

Today began as a good day. Talk about going home this afternoon was happening and all Tyler's peeps were lining up to help him get home.

Then something happened.

As he was taking a short nap I was sitting next to him holding his hand so he could have some reassurance.

Suddenly I realized that he wasn't breathing. I gave him to the count of five, hollered his name to see if he was just very tired. Then I witnessed his eyes roll backward into his head and his heart monitor went flat.

I quickly ran out of his room to get the attention of the medical personnel but they were already on their way to his room. They saw on the monitor what I had seen in his room.

The hollered his name loudly to him, hit him on the chest and grabbed the ambu-bag to start resuscitation. Someone called for the code cart. All I could do was to go over and hold his hand while I called Craig on the phone to come to the hospital right away.

Tyler came thought the ordeal after a bit of work. Soon after his heart rate shot up to 180 beats per minute and his blood pressure went a bit too high.

With additional medications both the heart rate and the pressure came back to normal limits.

Following a C.T. Scan and an EEG of his brain -- it was determined that the area of his brain which sustained an injury at birth was firing electricity in random patterns throughout his brain. Apparently the brain forgot to send electricity to his heart so it stopped beating.

With some additional medications and numerous blood tests -- it was shown that his seizure medication had fallen to dangerously low levels during this hospitalization and some of the additional medications may have interfered with his seizure meds.

In addition, many of the coma-inducing medications should have been decreased through a weaning process rather than discontinuing them all at once.

What's important is that Tyler is ok. He'll have an additional three days in the hospital just to make sure the seizures are under control.