Sunday, September 09, 2007

New Central Line & Doing Well!

It's day 6 of Noah's hospital stay and things are looking much better. An ultrasound was done last week of Noah's femoral line and another large clot extending from his line up to his liver was found. Hematology is stumped as to why Noah's body still produces these clots even on enoxyparin and heparin. He has been tested for clotting disorders, but so far everything looks normal. It looks like as long as Noah needs a line, we are going to be dealing with this complication. This means long term enoxyparin injections twice a day for Noah. His poor bruised thighs are only going to get worse. The idea of adding another blood thinner such as ASA was tossed around, but the hematologist decided that the risk of bleeding would be too high. So we will continue to do what we are doing and deal with the clots as they come. It's very frustrating to be dealing with so many line problems. We know that having a line is not ideal, and yet when we see how well he does on TPN (Noah is over 13lbs now!!), it still seems to me that this is our best option right now.

On Thursday the surgeon decided to go ahead with the surgery. She removed his femoral line and put in a new tunneled double lumen Cook line in his chest. Noah did really well. He spent Thursday night on the surgical ward in a monitored bed and was then moved back up to CH5. Once that old line was out, the fever spikes stopped. He has been fever free for 3 days now and looking great. So the plan is to go home tomorrow once we get everything organized with the home IV and TPN programs.

4 comments:

Jamie said...

I'm glad to hear all is going well. Hopefully you make it home again for awhile!

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad that the surgery went well. I've been truly thinking about you guys (as I always do). Also glad to hear that the fevers have stopped for now. That's great news. I'll be praying that you both can go home soon.

Take care and God bless!

~Rissa

Kirsten said...

Hi! I am a friend of Jamie's, and I have been checking on your blog. I am a pediatric nurse. Thank you for sharing your journey. It helps me to hear an experience from a different perspective (family vs nurse). I have been praying regularly for your family. Noah is so cute! I know that your family is ministering to those around you based on your attitudes. I pray strength and rest in these days and weeks to come.

I just wanted to make one comment about the enoxaparin. Do you have insuflons? We use them all the time for enoxaparin, so that they only have to have one poke a week rather than 2 pokes daily. I think they are so great! Hope you don't mind me asking!

Blessings to your family
Kirsten

The Keowns said...

wow! 13 pounds. Hope you guys make it home soon!