Tuesday, May 08, 2007

But do they call me Gib the Oddsmaker?

So much for my radiology or oddsmaking skills.

Even though the outside of Ellie's central line slid a good bit when she yanked it this morning, the inside stayed right where it should be.

This let Dr. Jennings repair the line without replacing it. A very simple procedure to splice in a new end- a metal straw inside the ends of the two tubes, a plastic sleeve outside and a whole lot of silicone caulk to hold it all together.

In 24 hours the caulk will be set and we will have a repaired line that is a few inches longer than the original.

The scariest parts of the day: seeing the flexibility of silicone as Ellie yanked her tube 18 inches away from her chest and seeing Dr. Jennings take a pair of scissors to her sacred central line that we have protected religiously since August.

I guess if you have the ability to install a new one, cutting an old one isn't that big a of a deal. Everything is relative.

The bottom line is that Ellie is back in her crib sleeping after avoiding a nap all day. To be honest Abby and I were the most upset about the possibility of having our bubbly little girl back on pain meds and anesthesia.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a team. And the people at Children's aren't bad, either...
I'm sorry you had a crappy day, but you all did fine work. Give her an extra snuggle for me.
Love,
Beth

k8land said...

K8 from CT says...I'm so glad things worked out okay. I'm also proud of myself for figuring out that I needed to read the prior entry to get a clue about what was up. Okay, all caught up now, just like y'all. Go team. Your presence of mind continues to astound.

Terri said...

As the person who said "oh shit" (how inappropriate for your visiting nurse to say) I am sooo glad everything worked out well. That'll teach me to trust Ellie without her onesie on. See you Saturday,
Terri