We Have a TOOTH!!!
Posted on February 7, 2012 by William
When you have a child with health problems it can be easy for the milestones to be overshadowed by doctor’s visits, medications, hospitalizations, developmental delays, and just trying desperately to be “normal,” if such a thing even exists. Well today we had a milestone. Evan’s first tooth broke the skin! He’s been chewing on things for a couple months and he’s been irritable but we just figured it was due to everything else going on, and it probably was. So it was a complete surprise when I rubbed his gums and felt a tooth in there. Yay Evan!
Evan’s had a pretty busy but good past few days. He’s been feeling much better and has had much more energy. He still sleeps quite a bit but the times he is awake are much longer and he is much more active and playful. Nanna and Papa came up on Saturday and hung out for a few hours. The Wilson family came to visit as well, it was so great to see Mia in the hospital as a visitor instead of a patient. Bobby and Wendy Wilson, keep up the great work and keep that wonderful little girl healthy! Sunday brought the Super Bowl and the Inaugural Heart Bowl Parade here on the 11th floor. Everyone was given a bag full of craft materials to decorate our strollers and before the big game started we had a little parade and party with the other families here on the floor.
On Monday the Nurse Practitioners changed the foam and dressing in the wound vac and Sarah and I were able to watch. The wound on his chest is a lot bigger than I thought. 1.4 in x ½ in and ¼ inches deep.
I have pictures, obviously, but you probably don’t want to see that. You could still see some infection in there but it looks quite good. They are continuing with the wound vac for another 3-4 days and then check it again. If everything looks good then they will remove it and switch to what they call “wet to dry dressings” on Thursday. Wet to dry means that they pack the wound with a wet sterile bandage and place a dry one over the top and seal it. This dressing gets changed 3 times a day until it heals completely. That’s right, they don’t stitch up the wound, they just let it heal on its own. It’s crazy to me but it’s safer for an infection than sealing it up and the infection having the ability to start growing again underneath.
Today has been extremely busy, I was hoping to get some work done but that didn’t happen at all. Evan had a great night and then we woke up to a huge puke. Once we gave him a bath and changed all of his bedding, Dr. Hirsch stopped by to say hello and check up on Evan before she went to the OR for the day. The NP’s stopped by a couple times to talk about his progress and “the plan” and our GI consult. OT came to talk about his oral aversion and did a little work with him that went really well. Evan’s blood test came back with low hemocrit (34 and it should be about 40), this means that he’s a little low on blood. This is due to the blood that they have needed to draw for testing as well as the chest wound. They are giving him some blood. This is such a good thing, let me explain why. We went home from the hospital a few weeks ago on oxygen because Evan’s oxygen saturation (sats) was too low (below 70%), looking back we are attributing it to the chylothorax that he had as well as the chest infection. With that clearing up his sats should go up, and they have a little, but not enough that we are off the oxygen yet. Today when I came in they had been able to turn the oxygen down to 1/8 of a liter, a very small amount, he was at 5 L earlier this week and his sats were at about 72. Blood carries oxygen, if the amount of blood that you have is low then you have less oxygen carrying capacity. So, when Evan gets this blood his sats should go even higher and we should be able to come off the extra oxygen completely! I fully expect to come in tomorrow and not see a cannula on his face!
Go Evan Go!
