Speed Bump - BMT +46

Sigh. Today was one of those yucky hospital days.

To be clear, Sam is not super-terribly sick. I say this because I am fully aware that it can be so much worse.
That said, there is most definitely something not-quite-right about his health right now and we don't know exactly why.

Let me back up to yesterday (Friday), when he was scheduled to be discharged with a diagnosis of two different bacterium in his bloodstream. Things were going fine, he was going home on IV doses of vancomycin (to be administered by Dr. Mom and Dr. Dad) and we were packed. Then, just as his last in-patient dose was finishing, the nurse took a set of vitals and bam...another fever. (Which is a little frustrating because it was low enough that it wouldn't have bought us a trip to the ER if we were home, but since he's already inpatient, it counts as a fever.) After consulting with the doctor, I knew that this was going to be another 48 hours in the hospital, waiting for a new set of cultures and some fever-free days.

As you can imagine, this did not make Sam happy.
He declared that he wasn't going to do anything, wasn't going to eat anything, wasn't going to leave. his. bed. until he could go home. Thankfully that only lasted a few hours and then he was out and about, spraying nurses and doctors and even his mama with syringes full of water. He declared that he was going to stay up ALL NIGHT and I let him give it a try until 11:30 when he finally conked out. (Did you know that Full House is on at 11pm? Who knew!?)

He's still having intermittent fevers (there was another at 11pm) and so this morning the decision was made to take out his central line. It was a moment in which I was quite interested in the educational system of the doctors. The attending doctor made the resident run through and eliminate all the possible sources of infection, until it was decided that the most likely source was the line itself. It's hard to tell, sometimes, because running the antibiotics through the lines can mess up what could be a positive culture. Some of this is a guessing game, but taking out his line seems like the simplest option.

Of course, it is a surgical procedure. It's only simple to the person who orders it, in my opinion.

He slept almost all morning and I didn't wake him because I was waiting to find out if the surgery was actually going to happen. At about 2pm, I learned that they just couldn't fit him into the schedule.

The view OUTSIDE our room, and this is kinda what it felt like inside too. Gray and dreary.

So now it's scheduled for tomorrow morning, supposedly we are first on the docket. It's a quick procedure, and they will place a peripheral IV to give his body a little rest from invasive lines....and then I think that a PICC line will eventually be placed in his arm to continue to give his IV fluids and medicines over the long run. Hopefully this will all happen sooner rather than later and we can go home by mid-week.

He was totally miserable all day today, continuing to be feverish and feel yucky and not eat and just....sleep. It's a little scary to me when he doesn't even want to watch SpongeBob. It makes me sad and scared and worried.

Like I said, he is for sure not the sickest kid around. But he's definitely not himself and I'm really really really hoping that tomorrow's line removal will fix this problem.

One of our favorite nurses said to me today, "This is a speed bump. And you know what's good about speed bumps? There's usually only one of them and then you can speed up and drive off."

Oh, I hope so.

P.S. If you want an update on our friend Sammy Jeffers, it's here.