The time came to finally give Aiden a bottle of something that would actually fill his little tummy and had some flavour to it. I was sitting in a rocking chair holding Aiden and we had fixed him a bottle of diluted formula.
His nurse Brenda walked in and looked at one of the drain tubes that Aiden still had in him. The fluid in the drain tube had turned a white milky colour. She immediately said that Aiden had to stop feeding. She left the room and returned momentarily. All the bottles of formula and water were taken out of the room.
A short time later, one of Aiden's other nurses mentioned "chylothorax" and that the pediatrician on duty would be in to tell me about this. Well, not wanting to wait until who knows when, I got the laptop out and looked it up myself.
Chylothorax is where long chain fats are "leaked" into the body via the thoracic duct. It can be caused by leukemia or by a trauma to the chest. Most cases are caused by leukemia, while only 25% are caused by surgery. Of course, Aiden happened to be the 1 in 4 heart surgeries where chylothorax develops...
What are the treatments for chylothorax? First, Aiden was given a medication to see if that would help clear up the buildup. Then, he was given a special formula via a feeding tube. That didn't help either. Then we tried another formula that smells worse than a skunk. Aiden couldn't keep that formula down long enough to even see if it would help. Finally, the leaking subsided and Aiden was put back on his regular formula again. And the daily chest xrays started to show improvement until the chylothorax was just a small, tiny amount that would be absorbed into his body.
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