Pray for the Banyard Family and little Vinnie

Update on little man!

Last week we got to take our baby home, it was so lovely having all the children together under one roof and starting our new family life as a 6.

 The following day I had to take Vinnie up the hospital to be assessed as he was refusing to take any feeds and was very irritable, this ended in a 5 day stay in the children’s ward to establish feeds and control the irritability . He was put in a bay with other poorly children even after I had explained about him being a high risk baby with a low immune system and is susceptible to infections. He was reluctantly discharged by his consultant with a NG tube (feeding tube) as well as his home oxygen… 

 We then got Vinnie home for another 2 nights, went on a beautiful bike ride with the kids, made dinner and ate as a family, lazed about and watched tv and just enjoyed every second soaking up the simple yet perfect memories with our children. We stayed in, no visitors at all. Night 2 Vinnie was very unsettled again, his breathing changed and his apnea monitor went off 5 times while he was sleeping, at this point we weren’t sure if it was accurate as the probe wasn’t stuck well and every time we checked he was breathing and no change in colour. 

Monday came around and I had noticed that he was working quite hard to breathe, sucking in under his ribs, rattling and had a cough so asked our community nurse to come see him, she agreed he didn’t sound right but to keep an eye on breathing and temp. A few hours later his temp was 37.7 so up the hospital we went. Vinnie was assessed and quickly rushed round to the children’s ward, his temp was 38.8, his blood tests showed high amounts of co2 which suggests he was struggling.

 He was put back on vapotherm to support his breathing. X-ray showed lots of white patches on his lungs so antibiotics were started and feeds were stopped to give his body a break. He continued to struggle over the next few days, his infections markers went up a lot and his breathing got worse. His oxygen levels would drop and so would his heart rate. (Which was SO scary!!) The doctors said he came in with bronchitis which then turned into a bad chest infection. 

 Wednesday night he was reviewed by the consultant, his condition was getting worse and no treatment was helping so he was moved to high dependency, started on cpap (which he hated) pandr were informed incase he needed to be transferred back to addenbrookes PICU, the intensive care doctors came to speak to me and there were talks of him going back on a ventilator. 

 Luckily he held his own and it didn’t esculate into an emergency. he is still in high dependency on 11L of valpotherm oxygen, very irritable and needing sedation to help calm him. His lungs are still very bad and he is wheezing but hopefully this time next week he will have turned a corner!! 

 Would have loved to have posted about how we finally had got our boy home, but this is Vinnie and nothing is ever as straight forward with him

To start with would like to briefly explain why I’ve set this page up, As most people are aware of what’s going on with Jake and Chloe’s Little one, Vinnie was born on the 11th October 2023 at 22:22 at just 24 weeks weighing 600 grams he is still very critical and the next few weeks will be touch and go playing it day by day!

As you can imagine times are very difficult with Jake and Chloe not being able to work as they will be back and forth to Addenbrooke’s as well as looking after the 3 other children at home also trying to keep a house going and the travel expenses to and forth from the hospital. So all we are asking is any donations big or small towards helping them be by their baby’s side through this tough time and keep praying for their little fighter!