Moving On Up...to a DE-Luxe ICU room.

Hey faithful followers!! We appreciate your interest in staying informed, and more importantly, we LOVE that you pray for my dad and our family during this difficult process.

So, in an effort to catch you up...here we go! It's been a busy two days.  Late Thursday evening he was moved out of the ICU and into a new private room on the third floor.  In the ICU he had been maintaining his vitals, breathing well, and quite honestly was the most alert and able bodied person on the ICU floor.  We weren't being seen that often from the nursing staff since dad wasn't very 'needy'.  We welcomed the change and were eager to get settled in his new room.

On Friday morning, mom sent us a message that the rookie nurse, who had been less than great throughout the night, had drawn dad's blood (a VERY normal and daily occurrence) out of his dual port Hickman catheter (the central line they surgically placed in the very beginning on this journey in his chest.  Through this line he received chemo, receives all other IV medicines, and receives/gives blood.)  As the nurse was flushing the line (which is also done every time they take blood or give medicine..etc) the Hickman was pulled out of place.  The nurse had to call in the doctor, who said it could not be fixed and was now a prime site for infection.  This doctor called in Dr. Kay, the surgeon who placed the Hickman originally to look at the problem.  Dr. Kay addressed the issue with dad's oncologist, Dr. Nguyen, and they all agreed the Hickman needed to be completely removed from his chest. We were heartbroken.  Dr. Kay scheduled a surgery time of 1:00pm for the removal to take place.  Now that this Hickman has been removed, dad was given a PICC line in his arm, which by definition is a peripherally inserted central catheter.  It is similar to other central lines as it ends into a large vessel near the heart.

As we waited in the waiting room during his removal procedure, Dr. Garcia Pacheco (pulmonary specialist/critical care physician) walked passed, so we spoke with him about my dad.  Dr. GP stated dad's lungs were worse and as a result, he would be going back to the ICU after he recovered from the removal procedure.  We were totally devastated.  Dad was so relieved to have been out of the ICU and now we were headed there again.

So last night, he finally got moved from recovery to ICU room 8, which we have dubbed the Penthouse Suite, since its the only ICU room with its own bathroom! While dad slept, the visitors played....

Here we are keeping our gloves clean and surgery ready!   :)

 And doing the ICU high-5 !