Ben,kim and Brayden Burt: Brayden's hospital stay at Sacred Heart

On September, 22nd 2011 I took Brayden into his pediatrician's office to get circumcised. He was a little over 2 weeks old and was SO little! I was so nervous that day because it was the first time I had to bring Brayden to an appt by myself. Ben had just worked a night shift the day before and was still sleeping when I left. I was already worried that I was going to cry through his appt because I was super emotional and I didn't want to see him go through the pain of the procedure he was about to get. As the his nurse was getting him ready for his circumcision she was listening to his heart and had a strange look on her face. She said "I'm going to go get a heart monitor because I am getting an unrealistic heart rate for him". She came back into the room with the monitor and a doctor. When they hooked him up to the monitor they could not get a reading. His pediatrician tried listening to his heart and said it was abnormal. She then had 2 other pediatricians listen and one of them said " It's beating so fast, I can't count it".

I started bawling!

They immediately instructed me to take him to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. I was shaking when I had to call Ben to tell him we had to go to the hospital. I remember hardly making out the words "Ben, something is wrong with Brayden's heart" through my tears. We drove to the hospital with Ben trying to consul me and tell me that everything was going to be fine. I was praying the entire ride over!

We arrived to the E.R. and they already had a team of doctors and nurses waiting for us and immediately started hooking him up to all sorts of machines checking his heart and oxygen. They even had to start an IV in his tiny little hand which was really hard to see.

We were in the E.R. for 3 hours and everything seemed to be fine. His heart rate was totally normal and we were told he probably just had a little episode of something called Supra-ventricular Tachycardia or SVT for short. We had a nurse come in and go over a little informational booklet on his condition and we were given some instructions on what to do if it ever happened again.

Literally, as we were gathering our things to go home, his rate suddenly spiked to 310bpm (beats per minute) the average heart rate for a baby is between 130-170. Doctors and nurses swarmed all around him to try and get it back down.

That was, to this day, the scariest moment of my life. I felt so hopeless as I just had to stand by and watch my little 2 week old baby experience something so scary! Ben was right by him while this was happening and said that he could literally see and feel his heart just pounding.

It was such a good thing that they had placed in IV in his hand because after failing to get his heart rate back to normal they injected a medication and pretty much had to stop and re-start his heart.

After they finally got his heart rate back to normal they sent us upstairs to the NICU for the night.

We were only there about 20 minutes before being greeting by my wonderful family with dinner and clothes.

Ben and I had to sleep in a different wing of the hospital that night because there were no beds in the NICU rooms, but we both took turns checking on and feeding him throughout the night. It was the saddest thing to be away from him. I kept wanting to just go and be with him. I was so worried that he would be crying for me or something.

He didn't end up having any episodes throughout the night and as they were getting ready to release us again he suddenly went into SVT.

They ended up moving him out of the NICU that day, and just down the hall to the children's cardiology floor. We had a larger room and a couch that could be turned into a bed, and that is where we spend the next WEEK!

We learned more throughout the week about Brayden's heart condition.

He basically has an extra pathway in his heart. While his heart is pumping, it can get caught in the extra pathway causing a very rapid heart rate.

Throughout our week in the hospital he went into SVT several times a day! It was happening so much that the nurses starting having us practice how to get him out of if. The most effective way was so take a bag of ice and covering his face with it :(

That was the second worse thing to watch him go through ( I was never able to do it ) we did this because the shock of the coldness would cause him take a very deep breath and it was re-circulate his heart.

There were a few times that the ice didn't work and they had to resort to the IV meds. After about 4 days in the hospital, we finally found a combination of medication that worked for him and for the last 3 days he didn't have any episodes. We were SO SO happy.

We were so grateful for all our family and friends throughout this time. We had meals brought to us EVERY day! My sweet sister, Stephanie brought us clothes multiple times and was with me almost everyday. As well as our parents and friends. I don't think we had a single day that we were alone.

Mostly, we are grateful that he happen to be in SVT that day when we took him into his Drs. appt. Otherwise, we may have never known that he had this condition. We all joked that he just really didn't want to be circumcised that day :)

Brayden is doing great now. He takes two different medications ( different forms of beta blockers to slow down his heart ) three times a day and he sees his cardiologist every two months.

Throughout his stay in the hospital, Brayden almost always had a smile on his face. He is the most calm and sweet baby. We sure love him!

Here are some pictures of our week in the hospital