Enzo Iuranich

Survivor

When Enzo was 15 days old, he woke up during the night and seemed particularly irritated. We thought maybe it was just discomfort from something spicy I ate, as this had happened with our older daughter, so I spent the rest of the night awake with him sleeping on my chest. In the morning his temperature was 100.4, so the doctor on call told us to monitor it. After taking his clothes off, laying him on his belly, and trying to get him to take some Tylenol (don’t do this! The reason why they tell you not to give Tylenol to babies under 3 months is because it may cover up a serious condition, like sepsis. I found this out afterwards), he seemed a bit better.

It wasn’t until he woke up after a nap in the early afternoon that he seemed even more upset and in worse condition. We took his temperature and it was 102.5, so we quickly rushed him to the pediatric ER at Strong. He was taken back immediately and they started working on him, eventually moving us up to the PICU. Because his heart was working so hard, they intubated and sedated him to calm him down.

He came off the breathing tube after 2 days and made a fairly quick recovery, thankfully. We were in the hospital for 12 days, though, to run out the course of antibiotics. After 5 days in the PICU we were moved to a regular floor for the remainder of the stay.

It turns out he had an e.coli infection, which stemmed from a kidney infection. In the hospital they found he had hydronephrosis of one of his kidneys, and after we were referred to a urologist we discovered he has a megaureter, which is likely the underlying root cause of the problem. We’re monitoring that now in the hopes that it gets better.

The hospital stay was extremely hard, both mentally and physically, but we are so thankful that we still have him here with us. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage as a result of this infection.

Source: Lauren Iuranich, mother

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