Rubyn Aulakh

August 6th – We took Rubyn to the Children’s Hospital in Calgary [Alberta] because he seemed very sick. He was throwing up, wasn’t eating, drinking, peeing, or making stool. After a few hours they send him back home because they said it was just a virus, that he had mild fever give him some Advil and to let him rest.

August 7th- Overnight his condition got worse because he seemed to be in pain and this would wake up every 5 minutes. We tried giving him fluids but he would throw up every time.

By morning Rubyn seemed dehydrated, with purple lips and he was drowsy. We were back in the hospital after a visit from a local medical clinic.

If we had been a few hours later bringing Rubyn for medical attention, they said we could have lost him at home. It would have turned out to be very tragic because if that had happened I would have just thought he is sleeping in his bed and just let him rest.

August 7th-10th : Rubyn’s condition was described as septic shock. He started swelling more and more every hour and the virus started to cause extreme infection inside his body to a point where his organs weren’t functional to do what they do, like heart kidneys lungs, etc.

Rubyn was on normal life support until this time but it wasn’t going to do much help because of his condition. They decided that he needed to go on ECMO, a more advanced type of life support. They had to start the surgery right away to insert the ECMO support into his body.

Rubyn was at a very low survival rate, where the doctors told us they can lose him during the surgery but the surgery was a success.

Once he was on ECMO. he was still very, very sick, so sick that he was the sickest kid in western Canada at that time, according to the doctors.

August 10th- They had to fly Rubyn from the Children’s hospital in Calgary to the Stollery Hospital in Edmonton because in Canada, Edmonton’s Stollery Hospital and Toronto’s are the only 2 places that specialize in ECMO Life Support.

August 11th -August 22nd: Rubyn kept getting worse. They didn’t know what caused him to be in this condition, what they were dealing with and gave him a 50% survival chance. They wanted to do a surgery on his stomach but the risks were too high. The x-rays and CT scans were showing there was nothing wrong, but there was something wrong. If they did do a surgery on his stomach, they wouldn’t be able to close him for a few weeks due to the swelling, which was another risk.

Rubyn’s kidneys were damaged due to pressure buildup, his skin was stretched to maximum and very sensitive.

He was on the strongest antibiotics – Meropenum, clindamyain, linezolid to fight the infection that was still unknown

August 22nd – 24th: There were some positive signs of recovery. They took Rubyn off the Ecmo and let his heart do the work, but was still on kidney and lung support. His heart was functioning on his own. He was still sick but very slowly having fluids removed. After going through all the CT scans to x-rays, the cause was still unknown and what exactly it was.

On August 24th early morning….. His heart just stopped….. They had lost Rubyn at that time. Doctors rushed to his room and started CPR within seconds. After 7 intense minutes they were able to bring him back to life……

They then had to paralyze his body and bring his body temperature to shivering point so that his heart can slow down and other reasons that I am not sure of.

August 25th-Current: His body started swelling, stomach started getting harder again.

They increased his medicine and fluids levels again.

Increasing it and decreasing it day and night again and again trying to bring his swelling down and let his organs slowly recover.

He is still in ICU because he is still very sick. The doctors and nurses are doing their best to bring him back to his normal health but they said it will take time as long as everything is going positive. Once Rubyn is stable, they will fly him back to the children’s hospital in Calgary but until then he will be here in Edmonton in the ICU.

We use to be very cautious at home when giving him even a small dose of Advil if he seemed to have a fever. But now the amount of meds he has had and types are wild: Neostigmine, Glycopyrolate, Meropenum, clindamyain, linezolid, fleet enema, Epinephrine, ketamine, morphine…etc., all so he can get well soon. At this time all we can do is wait and let the doctors, nurses and the medicines do what they do best.

Thank you everyone again for your well wishes, prayers and love. — with Lakhvinder Aulakh at Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Update: On October 1, Rubyn came home after 2 months. He still has a long road of recovery ahead, but he’s home.

 

Source: by Ricky Aulakh (Rubyn's father)