Yesterday was a LONG day.  Steve took Porter to the hospital with the nurse in the morning for Porter’s procedure while I went and took two quizzes and turned in a paper.  Sure was hard to concentrate in class but Steve had everything under control at the hospital.

They got him prepped and took him back on time. The Dr. found both testicles and was able to pull them down.  The one on the right took about two hours and the one on the left just about a half hr.  There’s a 1:20 chance that he may loose one of them and a 1:500 chance he’ll loose both but we are relieved to know that he was able to bring them down in one surgery. ENT also put a new tube in Porter’s left ear as his old one was coming out. 

They brought Porter into recovery and his respiratory rate was quite high and he was agitated.  He tends to have some trouble coming out of anesthesia.  

We requested they give him Fentanyl and Tylenol which they did.   Porter was still uncomfortable and breathing quickly.  We noticed they had him on a full liter of oxygen so I turned that down and his O2 sats remained stable.   I asked for a different flow nozzle for the O2  – one that would go lower than .5 without jumping to 0 so the nurse- who really hadn’t done anything the entire time Steve or I were there said she would page respiratory.  

The therapist came in and I asked her for a pediatric flow nozzle and she told me they didn’t have one.  Well- we knew this RT from the PICU and we also know they do in fact have them so I simply told her – you do have them and we need one.  She said she would have to dig around to find one and didn’t know how long that would take.  So I said OK, we’ll wait.  She was also going to see about an adapter for his vent tubing to allow the o2 to flow directly into the tube vs coming off a nozzle on the vent.  It wasn’t 3 min and she was back with the adapter and a pediatric flow appeared on Porter’s bed.  I said – Oh, there’s the nozzle we need and she handed it to me to install!  Steve and I have learned a lot about the equipment but he wasn’t there at the time because they claimed only one of us could be back there and I had never changed one of those out but the anesthesiologist was standing there so he made the switch.  lovely. 

We put the o2 adapter on Porter’s vent tubing and an alarm started going off, one alarm I had never seen before and the RT had never seen.  She was trying to trouble shoot the vent but had no idea what it could be.  His tubing is supposed to have air coming out (an expiratory port) but as I was feeling around the tube I was not feeling any air coming out so essentially he could not exhale properly.  I informed her what the issue was and we added the expiratory adapter. 

Once we got him settled out and probably about 2 1/2 hours after he’d been in recovery we noticed that there were no fluids going to his IV so I asked if he’d had any fluids since the procedure and the nurse said – well, No.  Every other person that was coming out of a procedure in there had some fluid hooked up to them.  Who comes out of surgery dry!?!?!  She said he got a bunch of fluid in the OR but they didn’t have him on a drip or anything in recovery.  She brought me some pedialite and I – not her- I gave it to him. The nurse in the recovery area sat on her fanny the entire time.  Steve and I are suctioning, adjusting o2, silencing alarms.  She was letting the alarm monitor just go off and I asked her to silence it and her response was – oh I’m immune to it. My response – I’m not and it makes me crazy so please silence it. 

 

We really did not want Porter to stay in the PICU and knew we had an excellent nurse at home for the night shift so probably against all their wishes there in recovery we made the decision to bring him home.  We were questioned over and over and over again about what equipment we had at home, did we really have oxygen, were we sure we wanted to take him home and it got to the point to where we said- he’ll do much better once he’s out of this place. 

After the last line of questioning from the on call anesthesiologist about our comfort level with taking Porter home she asked the not so helpful nurse who just sits on her fanny and watches – to help get Porter’s clothes on to which she replied: “oh the mom can do that”.  My statement: ” exactly why we are not staying here.”

Not to mention- if Porter had any respiratory issues or cardiac issues – Duke would be where we would go. 

They sent him home with Ear drops, Oxycodone and Tylenol orders.  We realized when we got home they didn’t send instructions with the ear drops- i.e. how many/often. 

He did not tolerate the oxycodone over night and threw up several times.  So far this morning he is tolerating food and we’ll see how he does with just Tylenol.  

Thank you all for your good vibes and prayers and thank you Kelly for rescuing Oliver from school for us and feeding him dinner!!

Hopefully today Porter can just rest.  It’s a rainy sleepy day.