PICC Your Battles

I'm not even sure where to begin today.  It has not been our day and I am in serious need of a nice vacation.  It was explained to me this morning that Hope would no longer be having a cardiac anesthetist.  There simple wasn't one available for her PICC line and they felt the PICC line was too important to cancel the procedure.  The anesthetist that did Hope's first heart surgery felt comfortable with the doctor that worked with her today during the PICC line.  He was a wonderful doctor and after speaking with him, I felt comfortable with him working with Hope as well.

Hope was in the procedure for about an hour, but came back without a PICC line.  The procedure was sadly unsuccessful.  They are watching her right arm as there were signs of potential clotting.  They had to try the right arm after not having success with the left arm.

Hope was taken to ICE (the step-down from ICU) after the procedure to recover.  While there, she had a reaction to the anesthetic drugs.  It was exactly the same as the reaction she had in Calgary.  I had to pull out my crazy mom side to get the doctors moving to be sure there wasn't any damage to her heart.  Last time she had some damage to her heart function.  I convinced them to give her some steroids and she improved after they were given, just like last time.  On both occasions that the reaction occurred, I trusted the anesthetist and don't feel they did anything wrong.  I simply know that she did not react to it any other time and I am worried about the surgery on Monday.

An anesthesiologist that is working in the PICU came up to take a look at Hope and try to figure out what was going on.  After a lot of research on her past experiences in the OR, they found one difference.  Hope was given one specific drug when they extubated her in the OR, that she wasn't given when she was extubated at a later time or never intubated at all.  They are now wondering if she's reacting to this specific drug.

The plan for the weekend is to give the protein infusion through her IV.  This will work temporarily, but Hope's IVs collapse and cause problems quite quickly.  We've decided it is better to give her multiple pokes to put in new IV's all weekend, than to put her back under anesthetic to try for another PICC line.  Please pray that her IV miraculously holds and they don't have to poke her over and over.  She'll begin the infusions tomorrow and have them for 3 days in a row.

I'm praying for a weekend with no drama!  Hope will remain in ICE over night tonight.  I could REALLY use a night of good sleep and am pleased that I won't need to sleep at the hospital tonight.  The medical staff (other than the rude doctor from yesterday) have been truly wonderful and we still feel confident that we're in the right place.  Some days with Hope are full of drama and complications, no matter who's care she's in!