Dream Big

IV's suck!!! The first night they tried to run fluids through her peripheral IV and of course the pump was constantly alarming, low flow and occlusion ... finally, because I was still behind on sleep, I went out to the nurses station and asked the charge nurse if we could PLEASE just take her off fluids. She asked if she drank well today and I said, no, she couldn't eat or drink all day in preparation for the surgery! She still agreed to take her off fluids, in fact, we convinced the doctors to take the order for fluids off completely until she gets a more permanent line. She is however still getting her antibiotic through the IV, and last nights one hour dose took 2 hours to run b/c it kept occluding. Ryan is at the hospital with her, I came home to clean, organize, pack, all that good stuff I didn't get a chance to do when we were suddenly told to go to the hospital. I've been surprisingly productive, we've got so much mail and just STUFF piled up due to the last 8 months of neglect. Logan and I will drive up to the hospital after nap today and he'll get to see his sissy, tubie free! Then he'll have to turn around and come home with Ryan.

It's looking like we'll be staying for a while. Her ANC was 800 today, so she's just about ready for chemo. As long as we can get her blood infection cleared up, she'll be ready to start. Right now, we are trying to get a negative blood culture. Her culture from Friday morning (before the hickman was removed) showed up positive yesterday. They drew a new culture this morning (yep they had to stick her for it) and we'll draw another one tomorrow morning. If these two cultures are negative after 48 hours, then we'll put in a new line, most likely the PICC (although nobody ever says for sure what they're thinking). So ... the soonest that would happen would be Wed. morning. With my luck they'll schedule it for Thursday morning because I have a doctor appointment for myself at home, that I scheduled three months ago. Isn't that the way it always goes?

Thank you for the comments about the PICC lines, sounds like many of you have had them and have had little issues ... minus the Aiden who took his out ;) oops! I've been talking to a lot of people around here about them too, and we're feeling better about it. I really liked the idea of the backpack leash, b/c I was thinking we could attach the leash to the pole. That way if she got away from her pole, the leash would pull instead of the tubes of chemo in her arm. And someone asked about her chemo running 24/7, and YES, it runs 24/7 for a full week! Not all chemo's are like that, every protocol, every child, every cancer is different. The good news though is once that 7 days is finished, she's finished FOREVER!!! That will be a day to celebrate for sure! As far as the microbiologists reading ... I'm not too overly interested in learning about all these cultures and organisms, I think I'm just frustrated that it all has to be so incredibly complicated. I never did well in Science class in school, so I don't think reading up on the topic would help much! I'll admit, it's just over my head.