4 Miles

We're all home!

Alex and James came home at 12, we had to go out to get his medicine (a whole box of bagged meds + a portable IV pole and other tubes I get to use to "flush" the meds into his system).

Roads are driveable if you're James…Mom and I like to follow the advice to stay inside if you don't have to go out. We've gotten between 7-8 inches and the winds are pretty strong, thus we're under a blizzard warning. I've been wanting to experience a blizzard for years…figures the one time we get one its when I don't want it!

My dad is supposed to be flying from Ireland to Chicago to here today…so the next prayer request is that he'll be able to get home.  We're thinking he'll be stuck in Chicago.

Alex did really well last night.  Slept most of the night.  He only woke up once for a long drink on his sippy cup.  He slept until 7am this morning and has been happy/fussy calling for "mumma" this morning.  I have alternated toys, holding him, gram-crackers and a sippy cup this morning trying to make him happy.

The pediatric orthopedic Dr showed up this morning to look in on him.  Will, once again, tried to get as far away from him as possible.  I don't think he likes that guy.  He said that we can remove the ace bandage sometime today.

We are waiting on Dr. Belcher (Infectious Disease) to arrange for the antibiotics.  Dr. Didelo said that it was up to Belcher as to when we can head out. 

Of course, if we ARE released today we have to deal with the snow storm we have here.  They are claiming that it has the potential to rival the blizzard of '78.  The county we live in is the southern most "snow" county.  Below us it is a wintry mix of freezing rain and snow.

Thank you for your prayers. 

We've had lots of people ask that question in the last day or two. The Drs. said there are several ways. The one I remember is the body can get a bruise in the area which could weaken the bone. The bacteria is already in the blood and enters the bone and an infection grows.  As I looked online I saw lots of cases that didn't apply (such as broken bones, infection during bone surgery, etc.) Here's what I found from Dr. Google (http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec05/ch065/ch065b.html) :

Bones, which usually are well protected from infection, can become infected through three routes: the bloodstream (which may carry an infection from another part of the body to the bones), direct invasion (infection), and infections in adjacent bone or soft tissues.

Osteomyelitis usually occurs in the ends of leg and arm bones in children and in the spine (vertebrae) in adults, particularly in older people. Infections of the leg and arm bones and those of the vertebrae are usually acquired through the bloodstream.

He's out of surgrery, in recovery, all went well. Lack of fluids + how tense he was made it too difficulte to work with the veins. I was told this new IV is in his chest and very secure–we will not have to worry about him messing it up as long as he wears a shirt. Hmmm…since it's cold out that won't be a problem!

Alex continues to have problems with veins.  The PIC IV isn't going in, so they called in a pediatric surgeon to do a different method that goes under his shoulder blade (instead of in the vein in his arm, up the shoulder to the major vein right by the heart). Again, safe for long term (often seen in cancer patients), but risker to do.   

A big prayer issue is how long he's gone without food or water (since about 10 pm yesterday). While I'm glad they have him in surgery so it was easy to do the second method, the longer he's under the more uncomfortable I am. They have plans to start hydrating him quickly as soon as he's out, and we were told this surgry could take 1-2 hours (we'e starting hour #2 as I type this).

We will be staying the night here.  The Anesthesiologist are busy/surgery had backed up. The Hospital Dr. who's managing the case today (Dr. Bricker) was concerned about how long Alex has been without fluids and antibiotics (remember the failed IV?). She felt if we couldn't get into get do the IV in the next hour we'd scrap it all and try again tomorrow. Then she came back and said an anesthesiologist would be coming in special for Alex. (Who-hoo, how do we rate?)  Hopefully he'll be able to go about 4. Even with him going in tonight they're expecting the entire procedure to take between an hour or two and want him to have plenty of time to recover and get the antibiotics, so they want him to stay.  Dr Bricker felt bad and was very nice about it.  We, of course, don't want to endanger Alex just to beat the storm so we've made plans. James agreed to stay tonight which is a huge blessing, I'm not sure I could handle 2 nights in a row here!  My mom is going to stay another night and she is praying the storm will fall apart before it gets here–we shall see. The weather people do like to predict the worst! And if anyone can pray apart a storm it would be her!

We're still sitting in the room, waiting for someone to come get us for the procedure that was to start at two. That's been the most frustrating part of all this, the waiting.  Alex finally fell asleep. He's been really tired but too much has been happening for him to sleep. Everyone left around 1:45 and I was going to keep him awake since we had been told we'd been going down to the Pediaic ICU for the 2nd attempt to put the PIC line in. He fell asleep on my lap and now I'm glad he's able to rest while we wait. This is finally giving me a chance to update a bit more.  As I said before it has been a frustrating morning, nothing going easily or to plan. I keep trying to remember this is for a purpose and to pray about it, but in my head I have a mental clock ticking "We must get out of here tonight!".

They attempted to sedate Alex with 2 different drugs this time to put in the PIC IV. When I left the room he was laying in the bed, sucking his tumb, and chiling. They said he never went out and wasn't still enough to try to insert the IV. (I've concluded we shouldn't expect Benadryl to knock him out ever–I think all the drugs are making him hyper. They have no idea why some drugs work in some kids and not others…just depends on the way that metabolism them.)  After all that, the nurse came in to give him his antibiotics and his IV had dried up.  That's when we had to go through the frustration (and pain for Alex) of 2 different nurses trying two times each to find a vein and make a new IV–to last just an hour or so until they get the PIC one in.  They gave up and were going to let the people doing the procdure do it.

In a way, I'm thankful for the peace of waiting right now.  Alex has been very fussy and clingy all night and morning.  I'm thinking this is more from being overtired then from being sick. So this update is to say "Nothing has happened". Thank you all for your payers.

What a frustrating night and day!  Alex didn't sleep well last night–he was awake from 2:30-5:30 am.  He couldn't eat after 2 and was woken up at 2:30 by the nurse checking his vitals. He really wanted to eat after that, but since it was after 2 I didn't feed him. Then later, at 4 am the nurse said I probably could have fed him, it was early enough in the window. 

I have to make this fast. The PIC IV wasn't put in b/c he wouldn't sleep with a second set of sedative drugs. At 2 he will go under general anthestia to try to put it in. At 12 his IV failed…and he needs this IV to give him the drugs to put in the more permenant IV. Four attempts to put one in the two different nurses gave up and are going to leave it up for the PICU people this afternoon.  We are still hoping to be out this evening.

Please pray we get released from the hosptial tomorrow. That storm is supposed to be coming Monday night-Tuesday. I really don't want to be snowed in here!

This is Alex, not happy because Mommy put him back in bed. We do have another picture of Happy Alex…you'll see in that, aside from all the things on his feet, he looks fine. (I decided to put the sad one up so he'd get your sympathy. If you click on the link and look at the happy one, I have notes that explain things like which foot is the 'bad' foot.) He really looks & acts fine most of the time. He seems to tire earlier and wants to be held more as well as being more easily frustrated now over not being able to roll over in bed or (when he's awake) not being able to crawl or pull himself up. Mommy is happy with the idea of being able to go home tomorrow, not Tuesday.  We shall see.  I'm not as thrilled with the idea of giving him antibiotics, but that's fine.

Another positive thing (aside from all the ones James has said earlier)–they caught the infection before there was any damage to the bone (which can happen between 10-14 days..we were probably on day 11 when we brought him in).