Liam's personal website can be viewed at http://www.nissens.galbraith.co.nz/
Liam made a very quick and early
arrival at 12.38am on Thursday 24th January – 2 ½ weeks early. After Tanya's
waters broke around 12.10am Craig, Tanya and Tanya’s Mum left
home at 12.20am and after a high speed drive with hazard lights on and
after running (carefully) many red lights, Liam was born at 12.38am. They only just managed to make it
to the hospital and Liam’s head was emerging before Tanya managed to make it on
to the bed!!
It turns out that Liam’s dramatic
entrance into the world was only the start of many dramatic events to come in
his short life.
It was evident very early that Liam
had swallowed a bit of meconium (baby’s first pooh for those who don’t know)
and was having some breathing difficulties.
He was admitted to Neo Natal Intensive Care and was on oxygen. All these early signs were consistent with
meconium aspiration. Over his first day,
Liam continued to work very hard to breath and became very stiff and had jerky
arm movements, so a decision was made to put him on ventilation. These abnormal movements increased in
severity later that day to seizure like activity and Liam’s temperature was up
to 40.5 with his heart rate up to230 beats per minute.
At this point Mum and Dad realized
that they had a very sick little boy, but it was unknown as to what the cause
was or even what they were dealing with.
Liam continued to struggle over the
days and he was still unresponsive. He
had no gag reflex which meant he required constant suctioning. An EEG was done which showed very abnormal
brain activity, but an MRI showed nothing particularly unusual. Liam’s sedation medication was stopped so
that the Doctors could see what he could do by himself.
When Liam was 5 days old, he was
extubated into room air and Mum and Dad finally got to have a cuddle with
him. This was a very special time and
the first of many cuddles they had with him.
At 6 days, Liam opened his eyes while Mum was talking to him.
The next few days continued with
lots of cuddles from Mum, Dad and other family members and even a couple of
baths from Mum and Dad. However Liam’s
condition remained the same and test results were inconclusive.
When Liam was 15 days old, he had a
repeat MRI and EEG which showed that at some stage late in the pregnancy Liam
had suffered an insult to his brain from lack of oxygen and if he was to
survive, he would be severely handicapped.
At 16 days old, Liam had a settled
night. During the morning it was harder
to keep Liam’s oxygen levels up and he was finding it harder to breath. At 12:30pm he had a drop in heart rate and it
was difficult to recover Liam from this.
Mum and Dad were called in and Liam was very pale and needed lots of
support to keep going. Liam was taken
out of his cot and Mum and Dad held him close until he passed away at 2:20pm.
