Code Blue

29/03/2021

‘Within seconds Jude went limp in my arms and was completely non-responsive, he was breathing but I was unable to wake him up’

I could continue by telling you the eventful story of our son’s arrival earth side; however re-living Jude’s birth is not the reason I am here. I am here to share our journey – a journey of love, heartache, strength, resilience, and everything in-between (the good, the bad and the ugly).

Wednesday, August 19 2020, Jude was just 24 days old – he was a happy baby, he fed well, slept well, and overall he was fairly easy going. When Jude woke up that morning, grizzly, refusing to feed and just generally unsettled – it instantly made us feel a little uneasy as he was usually such a settled and content baby. We had made a doctor’s appointment at our local GP the night before; as we had noticed Jude’s sinuses seemed slightly blocked, so we thought it was best to just get him checked.

As the morning went on, Jude was becoming more and more agitated. He was blatantly refusing all feeds, he seemed to be uncomfortable and when I moved him he would cry hysterically (a cry I will never forget). He would only settle if I held him in a certain position and even then it was only momentarily. We were exhausted, it felt like we were trying everything to settle him and nothing was working, being first time parents we were feeling very overwhelmed and out of our depths.

About an hour or so before Jude’s appointment, I took him to his nursery to change his nappy. When I undressed him I noticed straight away that he had some laboured breathing, he was sucking in quite hard at the ribs. I also noticed that his skin colour had gone really pale; he was as white as a ghost and he also had ‘mottled skin’. I went straight in to show Sam and asked his opinion, he suggested that as we were heading to the doctor’s in less than an hour, if he seemed ok we could just get him checked there. Call it ‘mum gut’ but I just didn’t feel right waiting, Jude seemed really off and I just didn’t feel comfortable, I had a horrible feeling that something was terribly wrong.

We called the health line and explained to them the symptoms that Jude was presenting with. They asked a series of questions one of them being if Jude was responsive – at the time he was, however within seconds Jude went limp in my arms and was completely non-responsive, he was breathing but I was unable to wake him up. The health line operator said that an ambulance was on the way and stayed on the phone with me giving me a very thorough explanation on how to perform CPR on an infant.

By the time the paramedics pulled into our driveway, Jude seemed to have perked up a little and was looking a slightly better colour. They came straight in and examined him, they acknowledged that he looked quite pale, but otherwise his vitals were fine, no temperature and he seemed a bit more comfortable than he was earlier, but still lethargic. They discussed that it was probably best to take him to the hospital to have him looked at, so we packed a little bag and I hopped in the ambulance with Jude and Sam followed behind in his car. It was quite surprising to see that ambulances aren’t overly equipped to transport infants – Jude was SO small in the bed and they had to put a strap around him to keep him secured.

As Jude had seemed a bit brighter and his vitals weren’t raising too many concerns, we just cruised along in the ambulance, no lights, no sirens, just silence. I kept telling myself that the paramedics didn’t seem too concerned about him, so hopefully he just a bad cold or a virus and we would be heading home in no time.

Once we arrived at the hospital, we were taken into a re-suss room, which the ED staff assured me was protocol and nothing to be alarmed about. Sam arrived soon after and luckily he was allowed in the room with us, as we were in the middle of the infamous COVID19 pandemic – however, we did both have to wear face masks.

There were a handful of nurses and paramedics setting Jude up in a radiant warmer. Sam and I were sat off to the side of the room, able to see everything that was going on but we were also somewhat removed from the situation as we had no idea what anyone was saying behind their face masks. Occasionally we heard words thrown around, one of them being bronchiolitis. It was probably at this stage we started to worry that Jude may have been more unwell than we had first anticipated.

All of a sudden there seemed to be a matter of urgency amongst the medical team, they had all started surrounding Jude and the paediatrician that had been called in started examining him, within minutes of her examination, she called a ‘code blue’

Doctors and Nurses came running from every direction, the code blue was announced repeatedly over the speaker system and there was a chorus of pagers alarming throughout the hospital. It was manic and a sense of panic filled the room. My heart was pounding through my chest, I couldn’t speak, all I could do was watch this nightmare unfold, clenching onto Sam’s hand – we looked at each other through our silent tears and although we spoke no words, we were both praying that our precious boy was going to be okay.

After what seemed like eternity, one of the Doctors came over to Sam and I and explained to us that Jude was really sick, he said that Jude 'wasn't going to die' but he was very unwell and needed urgent medical attention. He also explained to us that they had detected a heart murmur and they believed Jude was in heart failure - they suspected he had a hole in his heart.