A Long, Tough Day

Yesterday was a tough day.
It started with a baby with pneumonia. The baby was an 8 month old with some congenital animalies that had been admitted with pneumonia. He was in severe respiratory distress. We tried some medicines and suctioning, but he became apneic and bradycardic. We did CPR and brought him back, but he was still working so hard to breathe. My training has taught me that a malnourished, little baby is only going to be able to breathe for that long before he gets too tired. You recognize how much he would be helped by taking a break from all that work with mechanical ventilation, but we don't have the capacity for that yet. We used all the medicines available. I mixed and hung my very first aminophylline drip to try to open him up, kept him on the maximum amount of oxygen we are able to give with the compressors, but it was just too much for him.