Transported to Ann Arbor and the ‘Wound Vac’
Posted on February 1, 2012 by William
Yesterday brought Evan’s first trip to the ER and today brought a couple other firsts. Today was Evan’s first ride in an ambulance (mom’s too) and his first experience with the wound vac. The ambulance ride was not the scary type that most people think of but instead just our little guy hitching a ride from Kalamazoo to Ann Arbor in style…ok maybe the big box with wheels is not your idea of style but it’s shiny and has lots of buttons and lights so as far as Evan is concerned it’s an
Aston Martin Rapide.
After we got settled in our new room and the staff was able to get acclimated with what’s happened since we left on January 9th Evan was taken to a treatment room and they started the task of making a shallow incision and draining the fluid inside the lump in his chest. The procedure took about 30 minutes to complete but Evan didn’t come back out for another 20 or so minutes because they were trying to start a fresh IV since he was already sedated. The nurse that performed the procedure came and talked to us, she said that it went well and they were able to get quite a bit out but that there was still much more that they were not able to get to. They hooked what is called a wound vac to the area to suck out the infection. You can imagine what this must involve or you can look it up on your own, i’ll leave the exact details out to save those of you with weak stomachs. They will look again tomorrow and reassess what needs to be done. They are going to culture a sample of the material that came out to see what type of bacteria it is. This can take as little as a day or as long as 7 but I suspect it will be on the very short end of that since there is no question it was bacterial. Once the type is determined then they can set a course for treatment.
Evan has been very good since we got here and he has been very comfortable. I think he’s catching up on some much needed sleep. I hope that it continues into the night as Sarah and I could use some sleep of our own. Big items for tomorrow, follow up on the drainage, see if the culture has grown anything, maybe drive back to Kalamazoo to pick up the second car, talk to social work and get setup with a place to stay while we’re here in Ann Arbor, and figure out what Sarah and I are going to do about work. Are we both going to stay here the whole time? Am I going to work from here? Will we trade off and on driving back and forth?
Here are a few pictures from his travels today.
