I.V., Part IV

Medically speaking, today sucked. When Jenn and I arrived this morning, things were going okay, but we immediately noticed that Lewis had only one IV running. Turns out the one in his arm had failed earlier in the morning and was removed. A few minutes later, Jenn noticed that the IV in his foot was leaking, that vein had collapsed too. They were able to get a new line into his arm pretty quickly, but that one failed 45 minutes later. They warned us that they might need to put the IV into a vein in Lewis' head. We decided to take a break and come back later while they worked on that.

After four attempts to insert an IV on his head, they decided to put in a PICC line. (Peripherally inserted central catheter, for those so inclined), which involves surgically inserting a catheter into a vein. Even that wasn't easy. By that point, Lewis was pretty well dehydrated, so the first couple of veins they tried were problematic. They got it going on the 3rd try and it has been working for several hours now, delivering meds and fluids.

Away from the IV, things are going okay. the g-tube seems to be healing nicely. Lewis' blood pressure and heart rate continue to be elevated. They're keeping an eye on that for the moment. If he continues to have high blood pressure, the docs will have an ultrasound done on his kidneys. They suspect the hypertension may be caused by a circulatory problem in his kidneys. After all the excitement with the IVs, they've decided to keep him on respiratory support overnight, just so that he can rest a little easier.

Last night, the tube for the ventilator was inserted a little bit too far. This caused a partial collapse of Lewis' left lung. That's what caused the wheezing last night. The position of the tube has since been corrected and his lung is better.

I think that's it. Today was miserable because of how painful the IV nonsense was for Lewis, but we have to keep things in perspective. Lewis is on plenty of pain meds and sedation, so hopefully it didn't hurt him much. He's having a tough recovery from the surgery, but he doesn't seem to be losing ground overall. Tomorrow's a new day.