Byron's Story, 37 Weeks
Miracle Mum, Natalie shares the story of how she discovered something was terribly wrong with her son Byron.
"Byron was born on his due date weighing a healthy 7lb 3oz. I had a fabulous pregnancy and gave birth naturally at 10.01pm with no problems. Byron slept like a trooper that night as well as all day Saturday, however, I was getting concerned by Saturday afternoon as Byron had no interest in feeds & was presenting with ‘doll’ like behaviours. The nurses told me it was nothing to be concerned about.
Sunday morning came round and Byron was still uninterested in feeds and still had not shed a tear. Around 10am that morning he vomited green bile and I knew something was terribly wrong. Everything moved very quickly from there... Byron was taken into special care & he saw specialists, had xrays and aspirates were also taken. John Hunter Hospital were contacted & they told us we had to get on a helicopter as they suspect twisted bowel.
When we arrived in JHH everything was go... Byron was taken into radiology & luckily no twisted bowel which left Dr Kumar with the thought of two possibilities...small left colon syndrome which would fix itself or Hirschsprung Disease. Dr Kumar suspected it was more likely to be small left colon syndrome. Byron was having bowel washouts twice daily and after about 3 days Dr Kumar wanted to do a biopsy as he then believed Byron had Hirschsprung Disease; a Disease I never had heard of or knew anything about. Biopsy came back positive & at 10 days young Byron went in to surgery to test how far along his ganglion cells weren’t working. We were told it would be a 4hr surgery, and at 4hrs we received a phone call to say that Byron was still in surgery & so far it was confirmed there were no functioning cells on his large intestine. After 8.5hrs we got a phone call to say that Byron was out of surgery and we were very lucky to have him here with us. If there were no functioning cells on his small intestine Byron may not be with us.
Byron had an ileostomy formed and recently had his pull through surgery. He is recovering well & we have his surgeons to thank for that. We are so grateful for his amazing surgeons and doctors because without them he wouldn’t be with us...Byron really is our miracle baby."
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