Anthony Wants to GO HOME

Anthony's IV lasted almost a week. Last night during one of his infusions Mark noticed that Anthony's hand was getting puffy. That's a sure sign that the IV has blown. Sure enough, the IV wouldn't flush, and we had to stop the meds. The resident on call was called and she said that Anthony had to continue getting his medicine either in an IV or Intra-Muscularly (IM). Because Anthony still had six doses of the Clindamycin and three doses of the Rocephin to get, I decided we should start another IV. The Clindamycin is due every six hours and we've been doing them at the 12s and 6s. This meant waking Anthony up for a shot at midnight. NO. THANK. YOU.

Two sticks later, we still had no IV. And the nurses weren't ready to try for a third stick. So the resident was called again, and was asked to come look at Anthony's chart. It was past 8:00, Anthony was asleep, and I wasn't ready to traumatize him with another try for an IV. If we had to go IM, that's what we would do. The only problem there was that the nurse told the doctor that Clindamycin can only be given orally or IV, not IM. So if he still needed something stronger than an oral dose, he'd have to get the IV. I explained to the nurse that I would rather this kind of call come from the ENT if the resident said we needed to restart the IV. Luckily, the resident said that since he was so close to the end of the IV course we could switch to oral meds.

Then, around 2:00am, I heard Anthony whine a little in his sleep. I didn't worry about it because he sometimes cries out in his sleep and then settles himself back down. That's exactly what he did last night, so I didn't get up. When we got up at 5:00 this morning to do a diaper/outfit/bed linens change, I noticed that the covering on Anthony's ear was off, and that the packing that was supposed to still be in his head behind his ear was laying in a long string next to him. He had pulled out the packing by himself last night! I can only imagine that's what he was doing at 2:00 this morning.

Anthony got his first doses of the Clindamycin and Omnicef (replaces the IV Rocephin) at 6:00 this morning and took them like a champ. Hopefully he'll continue to do so well taking those two nasty tasting meds!

His nurse for the day is hopeful (as are we!) that since he is IV-free and packing-free already, and that since we know he's tolerated his first dose of oral antibiotics, that we might be released today! How wonderful would that be!!

I'll update again when I know for sure when we're coming home...so stay tuned! Below is a picture of Anthony and me yesterday at one of the fountains here at the hospital. Whenever he sees that fountain, he wants to get out and touch the water, so that's what we do!



Love, Laurie, Mark and Anthony