New year, new line

I planned to write a post about how much we enjoyed time with family over Christmas. Terran’s first Christmas included Nana dressing up as Santa, snowfall on Christmas Eve that stayed through the New Year, and a week in Bellingham with Grammy and Grampy. So many friends and family members doted on Terran (and Mama & Dada!) and made our family feel extra loved. We played by the fireplace, sang Christmas carols, took walks in the snowy winter wonderland, and spent quality time with immediate family we don’t see nearly enough.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

That would’ve been a beautiful post, but the New Year had other plans. Walker & I were in the middle of cooking dinner and had just wrapped up our first TPN of the New Year when we felt the line tug a little so we checked the dressing and sure enough – sopped in blood again. We knew what to do, so I calmly added pressure while Walker grabbed our things, shut down the house, and we hit the snowy streets for Children’s Hospital. The ER was a little busier than Thanksgiving but everything went pretty much the same as before except Terran’s blood results showed slightly abnormal white blood cell activity so they decided to admit us for observation in case of infection. Since we were admitted, they took X-rays images to view the central line while we waited the 4 hours for the new line to solidify. Unfortunately, the X-rays showed the line wasn’t in the intended central vascular junction location anymore. In fact, “it wasn’t even close.” It had backed up to his jugular vein and in doing so was possibly causing some minor damage to his veins. The point of the central line is to a) act as a barrier between the TPN and the vein as it travels to the heart and b) offload it to the heart to be promptly pumped out and absorbed by the body. When the TPN is released next to the heart, it’s immediately pumped throughout the body so the highly concentrated formula doesn’t have a chance to burn Terran’s precious veins. That can cause scar tissue and make the route unusable for future infusions. For someone who could potentially need TPN for the rest of his life, you protect those passageways as much as possible.

• 

• 

• 

Mini mama rant warning: to the untrained medical eye, this seemed like a total failure. The planned annual X-ray clearly isn’t enough for an infant who is doubling in size every few months. It was a total fluke that he ended up having the X-ray that illuminated the extreme movement. Add another thing to the list of questions we don’t know to ask until we end up in an emergency…

Terran got his central line placed when he was only one month old so he got the smallest (weakest) size. He’s starting to grab and tug on it, plus he’s moving around a lot more. The added play weakened the new line to the point of breaking. He’s on the surgical schedule to get a new line tomorrow morning and it’ll be a bigger (stronger) size so that’s good… He isn’t even crawling yet so we have several challenges ahead of us as far as keeping the line secure… another good thing about getting a new one is it will be shorter than the repaired version so it’ll fit under the dressing better. Another factor to the second line break was the fact there was so much material to try and fit under the dressing that we didn’t always get it exactly how we wanted it before Terran decided the procedure was over (the clock is ticking when dealing with an upset baby in a sterile environment).

Tomorrow the surgeon will try to reuse the same vein for the new line. *Hopefully* it hasn’t been long enough to build up too much scar tissue to warrant that vein obsolete. Since Terran will be under general anesthesia we’ll likely stay one more night before going home.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Terran’s mind has developed so much that he’s getting bored in this small hospital room. We brought some books and toys – but he’s limited in his grabbing abilities since one hand has a temporary peripheral IV and a giant sock over it so he doesn’t pull it out. Poor guy is just trying to explore the world! We have to watch him so closely and redirect him when he’s pulling on this (optimally positioned) cord that goes literally everywhere he does. How do parents do this?!! Arrgh! Terran’s (exciting!) increased interaction with the world also presents new and constant dangers. What a terrifying paradox.