Alder Hey - First Admission

He was transferred by ambulance on the Saturday and settled in on ward L1 (burns and plastics). All the right people came to see him as soon as they could and he was scheduled for his first laser treatment on the Tuesday. On the Monday night I noticed blood was on his gauzes. As ever, I am always concerned when he bleeds as he can lose a lot of blood without it coming through the bandage and I asked for this to be removed. My suspicions were correct and the gauzes had soaked up lots of blood. This was late on and results of a previous blood test also showed he needed another transfusion. They couldn't get a line in anywhere and had to call a matron to do this. This is the only person who has not let me be with him when something was being done to him, I've seen everything, nothing would make me turn into 'hysterical mum'. Instead I had to go outside when they put a line into his scalp. They kept the few strands of hair they had to shave off for me. He had more fluids and another blood transfusion in theatre when he had his laser treatment.

The pictures here show the birthmark as he arrived at AH and with the cap on his head protecting the line there. From what I understand since, speaking to other nurses etc, putting lines into the scalp is quite controversial these days and not favoured.

First Bleed

During October the wound under his armpit became more and more painful and was not clearing up with the dressing changes and cream. On 2nd November Fox was christened at All Saints Church, Waltham by the very caring Rev. Shelton. Fox was excellent throughout and looked beautiful.

We decided to have a family meal at The Haven restaurant on the other side of Grimsby as the children in our party could use the play area there. I went to change Fox and as I came out of the toilet I looked at my hand and blood was pouring down my arm. I shouted Mark to lay his changing mat on the floor and asked someone to get me some scissors quickly. My cousin is a vet nurse and advised me to not take off the dressing as it may be helping to stop the bleeding. This was probably the biggest mistake I made. I should have gone ahead and removed it to ascertain where the bleed originated from. Despite the dressing still being in place I applied pressure with a nappy, all I had to hand. Mark called an ambulance due to the speed he was losing the blood. Fox stopped crying and went as pale as he could possibly ever go. His body had gone in to shock and he began to shut down. In the ambulance he was just silent and sleepy. Thankfully, when we arrived at the hospital they had an entire team ready to work on him. He was still losing blood and anyone who has seen a haemangioma bleed will know it does not just trickle out. They took a good while trying to get a line in to him due to his veins closing. Eventually they managed to get one in his neck and he was then given fluids manually from several large syringes while they tried to order some blood. My blood was also taken to cross match. We were then told he would be transferred to Sheffield, Leeds or Great Ormond Street. Eventually he was stabilised and then we were told that he didn't need to be transferred as the bleeding had stopped. His arm was then bandaged to his side and he was admitted to a high dependency room for the night. The nurses in Grimsby are always very caring and friendly.

Fox spent a week in Grimsby where it seemed like nobody really wanted to remove the dressing and we were told by one doctor on his rounds that it ''wasn't really life threatening''....ok. His community nurse, Linda, helped us re-do the dressing on the Wednesday. Unfortunately, a non-adherent dressing had not been used so he squirted yet more blood out when this was done. Also, where his arm had been pressed against his side for 4 days, it had opened up another area of the haemangioma.

Several different doctors came to see him and he went down to see the Dermatologist again, this time he said it was really beyond his expertise now. We then saw a visiting Plastic Surgeon from Hull. He knew Mr Liew at Alder Hey and said he would discuss Fox with him. Later that day we were told he would be transferred to Alder Hey on Saturday.