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Aug. 22, 2009
Out with the old, in with the new
I've got some great news - a broviac has been located and delivered to the hospital! Noah will be going to surgery tomorrow to have the old line removed and the new line put in.
Many of you asked why simply getting a broviac delivered wasn't one of the options that I listed. It was everyone's first choice, but the hospital hadn't been successful in convincing any other hospitals to send off one of their broviacs. I'm not sure if it was a money thing, or a policy thing, or what. At any rate, it became clear that just getting a broviac sent here didn't seem to be an option. Infectious disease wasn't comfortable with a port or a PICC, so as of mid-morning the plan was to send Noah to Columbia. Columbia had the broviacs, and while they weren't willing to send one here, they were willing to accept Noah as a patient and do the broviac placement surgery on him.
In a last-ditch attempt to get a broviac here, Noah's surgeon asked his charge nurse to call other OR charge nurses at children's hospitals all over South Carolina and North Carolina. The hope was that if we couldn't get a broviac using regular hospital-to-hospital channels, maybe the nurses could make it happen. (I love nurses!)
When the surgeon came out of surgery this afternoon, his nurse told him that he had a present at the desk . . . . it was a broviac!!! I'm not sure which hospital sent it, but we have it!!! We're all concerned about the possibility of infection from the damaged line, and concerned about keeping Noah's IV (so far, so good, by the way), so the surgeon is going to do Noah's surgery tomorrow - very unusual to do this on a Sunday. This is a Level One trauma center with a greatly reduced staff on weekends, so it is rare for non-trauma or non-emergent surgeries to be done on weekends.
I am just so blessed at how the Lord has worked through this whole crazy situation, and at how faithful and diligent all of Noah's team has been. They have all gone the extra mile to be certain that Noah had the best possible outcome.
The big prayer requests are for safety for Noah during surgery, and for that line to work. It's not unheard of for something to happen during surgery to require the use of a second line, but we only have the one. If something did happen to the line, Noah would end up with another neonatal line, which none of us want. Also, Noah has been VERY draggy all day. He has stayed in bed all day. Most of the time he hasn't even been interested in sitting up, and hasn't even asked for toys. I finally went and got some things from the playroom, and he sat up to play for a while then wanted to lie down again. His hemoglobin was checked last night and was much higher than it had been on Thursday - the difference is so large that I think someone's machines need calibration. I have to assume the numbers here are the accurate ones even though Noah's behavior and exhaustion make it look like the lower numbers we got at the doctor's office are the accurate ones. At any rate, there is no way he will get a transfusion if the numbers here look good. It would just be nice if we knew why Noah is so listless. It's the kind of thing that sets off alarm bells for me, but we can't see any reason for this right now.
I'll try to tweet when we're going down to surgery tomorrow (don't have a time right now) and when he gets back.
Thank you for your prayers!!
Blessings,
Kate |
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Aug. 22, 2009 - DVD Fairy Does Happy Dance
Praise God from whom all blessings flow...