Sunday, March 26, 2006
So here we are again. I swear it would be easier to just move in to the hospital. We've been here so long that we fill in as temporary patient reps when she goes to lunch or takes families up to visit their patients. We know how to find pretty much any place that people need to get to - the people who are in this waiting room anyway. The only thing we don't do is answer the phones, and we'd do that too if it wasn't a
HIPAA violation. Kory has even learned how to transfer calls to all the phones in the room, and he's privy to the security code on the supply closet. We're fixtures here. Joan and Michelle especially have become almost like family.
Anyway, we got here at noon, and went right up. The first report included the possibility of an abdominal abscess. They were waiting for the results of the CT Scan at that point. They'd come back by the 2 o'clock visit, and they showed no abscess, which is good news - but they did see a blood clot in the superior vena cava, so they'll put him on low dose blood thinners now.
They managed to get another IV line in, so they can administer the antibiotics without pushing in the Dopamine and raising his blood pressure and heart rate. That's a relief.
He's still very swollen, but that will be so until the infection clears. The CT Scan also showed quite a lot of fluid in his chest and abdominal cavities, but they think (hope) that will clear up on its own as he begins to heal from the infection, so hopefully they won't have to do any invasive procedures to fix that.
I took the "Easy" button in with me at noon. It's a hoot. When you push it, it says, "That was easy!" I took pictures of it in his bed, but I can't remember to bring the stupid cord for the camera so I can't upload it. Later I will. The nurse (Tiffany) thought it was pretty hysterical because last night the IV monitor/alarms were going crazy and she couldn't figure out why. She'd fix one and get it reset and the next one would go off, and she'd do it again, and another would go off. Since they all go in at the same place, it should be all, or none, not one at a time, so she was going crazy trying to find the problem. She finally did, but in the meantime, we laughed at her and gave her hell of course, because that's what we do. She said next time, she'll just push the Easy Button and be done with it ;)
Unfortunately, it's made to sit on a desk top, not hang on a crib, so I'll have to figure out a way to get it to hang on his crib - maybe some double-sided sticky tape and a magnet.
posted by Erin @
3:18 PM
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