Scary Day

As most of you know, Anna was going in to the hospital today for a routine eye exam. One that she has had three times already.

For some reason, today she had a reaction to the eye drops. The eye drops are vasoconstrictors which means that they narrow the blood vessels and sometimes because it's systematic, it might narrow other blood vessels in the body, causing a negative reaction.

In Anna's case, about one hour after she received the drops, she stopped breathing. The nurses had to resuscitate her and she was hooked up to monitors immediately. But once she was stabilized, she did really well.

The eye exam was performed later on and her vitals were great during the exam so they let us take her home. This was a localized incident and we were told that we just have to inform the staff next time she is in for an eye exam, to keep her on monitors at all times and to stay after the exam for a short period to make sure she is stable.

Apparently these reactions are not unheard of. Some babies have negative reactions to the drops and the doctor that has been taking care of Anna while in the NICU in Oshawa was confident to send her home. We will go back to see him on Monday because while there today, he noticed that she has some fluid in her lungs. So he ordered for her to take some diuretics (which are medications which increase the excretion of fluids from the body) for two weeks and since he has a lab there at his office upstairs, he can do some blood work on her to check her electrolytes (it is common for the body to dehydrate while on diuretics). So now Anna is on iron supplements, multivitamins and the diuretic.

I can't even describe how emotional and scary today was for us. We watched our daughter lose all consciousness and all that ran through my mind was that we were going to lose her. We weren't informed prior to the drops being administered that there could be such a fatal side effect. Had I known this, I still would have panicked but would have kept a closer eye out for it.

We are in a state of shock, panic, fear and disbelief right now. But little Anna is trucking along, sleeping soundly as if nothing happened. What a poor little girl, the things she has had to go through all her life, not to mention today's incident and also how terribly invasive these eye exams are. :(

Anyways we will keep you posted on her progress...


Marta & Arthur