Wednesday, September 27, 2006

We are home!!!!!

We are at home and free from the confines of the hospital. Evan is currently happily watching Wheel Of Fortune with his father.

Shortly after Evan woke up transport came to take us for his chest x-ray. I was rather surprised that they came so early but also pleased that we would get that over with so soon. Just as we got back from the x-ray the vampires arrived to draw Evan's blood. The same person came last time so Evan knew what was up and started crying when the woman entered the room. I felt kind of bad for her, it must be hard to have a job where kids sob at the sight of you.

Three of us ended up holding him down as he was struggling quite hard. The phlebotomist was having a tough time hitting a vein as all the ones in his arm were pretty well shot. She was digging and digging but not getting a thing. Evan's nurse finally had enough and could not stand watching the digging any more and offered to try and get some blood from his foot. She got out some syringes to pull the blood out rather than the vaccutainers that were being used. The vacuum can often collapse veins in little kids making it super hard to get any blood out. The stick went very smoothly and poor Evan was rescued from further torture.

The nurse later apologised for fumbling around thinking that it made her look unprofessional. I told her that I was just happy that she rescued Evan from further digging. Truth be told I had not anticipated that she would have such skill at drawing blood in the first place. The nurses on the peds floor have a tendency to rely more on the lab staff for blood draws so their skills can be quite rusty.

Soon Evan's surgeon came in with his nurse and removed the stitch that was holding the skin closed where the chest tube had been. It was a very joyous good bye. We were all happy that the hard part of the journey was over and that Evan was healing so well. I don't think that I can ever thank that man enough for giving Evan a chance at life.

We had to wait quite awhile for Evan's cardiologist to come and see him. She was the final person that had to see him before we left. She had a lot of patients to see so she was not able to come by until 2:30 in the afternoon. I had just put Evan down for a nap hoping that it would get her to come. Every time Evan went down for a nap a stream of people seemed to have a sudden need to come into the room. It worked like a charm.

It sure is nice being home. Harry missed me and has shown that by being ultra clingy all afternoon. Hopefully a good night's sleep will cure that.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome home Evan!! I knew you were one courageous, brave lil' man who will heal fast and strong!! Sleep, eat, play and receive generous amounts of hugs and kissess! You'll be good to go in no time!
God bless you all!

bella said...

Welcome, welcome, welcome home!!!

:)

bella

Anonymous said...

oh wow WELCOME HOME!!!! Hope the healing comes as well as everything else has so far!!!!

Nancy Evans said...

Im am so glad I wasn't there for the blood draws. I would have surely yanked the needle out of that phleb's hand. I never used vacutainers for peds. You always use a syringe so you can have ontrol over the pull rate so you don't collapse the vein by pulling too hard. When your dad was in the hospital for his recent surgery I almost ended up doing the blood work because the first Pleb "couldnt feel anything" Having drawn his blood many times I knew he has good veins. (Fortunatly they got someone else to do it that was more experienced :)

chichimama said...

Welcome home! So glad to hear everything went well.

Here's to a quick and easy recovery...

talitha said...

So glad to hear that things are going well and you and your sweet boy are back home again!!