20 Jun Try again
I am honestly having a hard time writing this post. After today, I have no idea how Keegan has not been hit by lightening with the rarity of things that happen to him. I’m buying him a powerball ticket tomorrow. There has to be a positive side to all of this. Keegan’s port placement did not go as planned today. He is ok, but tomorrow, he will have to go back to the OR to try to correct what happened.
The first sign that things weren’t going as planned was Keegan staying in the OR almost an hour after he should have been. When we were called into conference with the surgeon afterward (not Keegan’s preferred general surgeon, by the way), he had a piece of paper and pen and started with “I’m going to draw you a picture.” No, no. No pictures. There is no reason for pictures in a port placement. Parents of heart babies and critical kids know – pictures are never good. The line is either in, or it isn’t. What is there to explain with a drawing? Ultimately, the initial time they snaked the catheter in, it was a bit too long. It was sitting within his atria and could have caused arrhythmias. So they pulled it up and trimmed it off. Then it was too short. At the time, the surgeon said it was working but wanted to warn us that it wasn’t in a typical position.
Keegan did wonderfully in recovery, and his eye exam was negative for yeast. When we got to the floor, the line seemed positional. It wouldn’t draw back blood for his labs when he was laying down but was ok when he sat up. Odd. We continued to use it until mid-afternoon when some other labs needed to be drawn. Nothing. Nada. No blood return at all. We ran down to fluoroscopy, where they shot some contrast into the line. Sure enough, it had migrated into the vein wall because it was too short and flopping around the SVC arch.
In the morning we are going to pull the needle out and reaccess, just to be sure. We are 99.99% sure though that he will be going back to the OR tomorrow to have it replaced. In fact, we have already signed the authorization to have him placed on the surgical schedule for tomorrow. We don’t have a time yet, but we just want it over with in order to go home by Friday.
I mean, seriously, folks. I couldn’t make this crap up if I tried.
I don’t need to say that two days of back-to-back anesthesia is not ideal. We are hopeful they will only have to replace the catheter and not have to find a new point of access. Again, we ask for your petitions on behalf of our Bug. We place his health and life in the Lord’s hands, and we trust and pray that He will bring Keegan through this trial. Thank you for joining us in that prayer. More tomorrow as we know it.