Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Katie's Life In Pictures - CVICU: Continuous Improvement

This is the last few weeks that Katie was in the CVICU. She slowly had tubes removed. When her PCVC line (kind of like a very tiny IV that goes wayyyy in) was about five and half weeks old and started leaking, they ended up having to take it out. They tried to get another one in her so they could give her fluid or medicine if needed but were unable to get it to thread past her shoulder - yes this line goes wayyy in. Every few days, they would try to put an IV in her in case they needed it but were usually unsuccessful. If they got one in, it would last anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days. I think one of them lasted 3 or 4 days but it was kind of iffy and they avoided using it since it wasn't really flushing very well. Even when Katie was recovering, she was really really hard to get an IV in. That didn't really bother us at the time though because Katie was doing well, getting better, and weaning off the sedation they still had her on. We were getting to hold her a lot more and it was much easier to hold her. I was able to get her in and out of the bed by myself and after a while I became an expert at positioning her moniter leads and pulse ox wires so that they didn't become tangled. Most days I would just sit and hold her for hours in the rocking chair next to her crib.