The Leon Family

Daniel was born March 19th 2019 weighing 7 pounds 1.2 ounces. As most babies, he dropped in weight, so his doctor wanted to see him weekly until he surpassed his birth weight. Around April 1st, Daniel started what we thought was his first cold/cough. On April 4th, we talked to his physician and she said his breathing sounded good and lungs were clear. Over the next week mom noticed he turned a little blue while coughing, but it stopped and he looked normal. Over the next few days we watched him closely. On Friday, April 12th we took him in for another weight check and voiced our concerns about his coughing and turning blue. The doctor listened to him again and said we should take him to Children’s if we wanted to get him looked at. So that’s what we did. While in the ER, mom fed him and while burping, he started coughing and his oxygen level went down to 75% and instantly was put on oxygen help and the team decided to admit him for observation. After many testing, we found out he caught pertussis or whopping cough. Due to his poor breathing, he was put on a ventilator to try and allow his body to rest. His white blood cell count was very high over 90,000 so on Monday, April 14 they did a blood exchange and brought his white blood cell count down to 32,000. After that, he declined a lot. His heart rate was between 200-215 and his blood pressure was slowly dipping. The decision was made to start him on ECMO to let his body relax from all the activity. April 15 remained unchanged. Overnight April 15-April 16, he had some seizure activity which results from him being so sick. They found medication to help them. Overall, April 16 became a better day. His heart rate came down into the 170s and his blood pressure was stable. He still had some seizure activity, but started giving him scheduled doses of medication, so it’s helping so far. April 17, his blood pressure was still stable and his heart rate is down into the 130s-140s. They were able to stop 2 medications that were keeping his blood pressures up, his swelling is slowly coming down. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. Daniel has been having periods of being awake, his chest x-rays are improving a lot, there is talk he could be off ECMO as long as he tolerates everything and shows he's ready.