Broviacs, Chocolate Cake and Wind

Two years ago today (March 7th), Dr. Horslen came into Anthony's room on the pediatric floor and told us that Anthony's liver was in shutdown mode. If he had any liver function left, it wasn't much. We were going to move Anthony (back) to the PICU and he was going to be placed as Status One on the transplant waiting list. If Mark was sure that he wanted to be the donor he needed to get up to Omaha, and quickly.

I called Mark as soon as the team left the room to finish their rounds, and he immediately booked a flight to Omaha. He arrived that night at 8:30 to see Anthony lying in his crib in the PICU, not moving, not smiling, not playing...just lying there. Mike and Margaret began their drive to Omaha that day, and arrived the next day (Monday, March 8th). My dad had to tie up loose ends at work, so he left Tuesday, March 9th (transplant day) and drove straight from Louisiana to Omaha (I think it's about 1500 miles).

That Sunday, though, Mama and I were there with Anthony and we watched as the team moved us from the pediatric floor to the PICU. They set up all of the machinery he would need to use after the transplant. It didn't pass my notice that the machinery was capable of sustaining artificial life, if it would come to that point before (or after) the surgery.

Sometime early in the afternoon, Dr. Horslen came to place an IV in Anthony. This was not the typical IV that goes in the crook of your arm, or in the top of your hand. This was a Broviac , or a central line. It is surgically placed, usually in the chest and it is a better way of administering IV drugs, if those drugs need to be infused at a faster rate or higher volume than an IV can handle. It had three lumens (lines) coming out, so that three drugs (or other IV fluids) could be administered at the same time.

Since this is a surgical procedure, Dr. Horslen "suggested" that we might not want to be in the room while he was placing the line. That was all it took for us to kiss Anthony goodbye and hightail it out of the room. I had watched a catheter be placed in Anthony's side, but I was SO not prepared to watch him have a surgery (albeit a minor one).

I think by that point that Mama and I were so stressed out that pretty much anything would be funny. She suggested we head to the cafeteria to have a couple pieces of chocolate cake and we laughed at the idea that chocolate would really help. We bought the cake and decided to sit outside since it was an absolutely beautiful day. Well, it was beautiful except for the wind! We quickly abandoned that notion since we couldn't hold on to our napkins (or our sanity) and were afraid that the pieces of cake would blow away. We giggled over that for a while. You can tell we were really punchy at this point, right??

We headed back up the PICU; certainly they were done by now (I think we had been gone half an hour). After peeking into the room and seeing the team still standing around Anthony's bed we made the (wise) decision to hang out in the PICU waiting area. There we talked about everything that had happened up to this point, and everything that we hoped would happen in the future. We laughed and talked about Anthony becoming a surgeon when he got older and how he could play the piano, too, to keep his fingers nimble.

Upon returning to Anthony's room, we found that the central line had been a little difficult to place, but that it was there and it was in nice and tight. Three lumens came out of a central line coming out of Anthony's chest on his right side. The nurses gave me a few lessons in how to care for the line, how to draw blood from it, how to administer drugs from it, etc...but told me that I wouldn't have to worry about fooling with it until after transplant. I hoped that I would NEVER have to fool with it.

The thing that stands out the most in my mind from that day is not the move from Peds to PICU, it's not the news that Anthony's liver had shut down, it's not all the new machines in Anthony's room, and it's not the central line being placed. The thing I remember the most is that Mama and I laughed a lot that day. I know it was our way of coping, and that we were laughing at the silliest things. But we did cope. And we did manage to make it through the day with very few tears.

Two days to go until "T-day".