Bone Marrow & Port

Gosh, I think today was probably even worse than yesterday. Arley was scheduled to have her bone marrow and port put in today at 10am. So she wasn't allowed any liquids. Then we were told they would come get her for 11:15-11:30 for an 11:45 operation. Yeah that never happened. My daughter wasn't seen until like four hours after her originally scheduled operation time. So needless to say she was starving and thirsty all day again because of the mess up.

Even though she was NPO she was allowed to have liquids up to four hours before her scheduled operation, but with an original 10am op time and a 6am wake up call she wasn't allowed. So with proper planning she could've had something to tied her over, but it never happened.

Aside from these hiccups regarding her operation she did really well with the bone marrow and port being put in that I can somewhat overlook the fact that it took ages to get to that point. I'm so thankful that she's responding well to all of the various tests so far. (Oh! And I almost forgot she also had an EKG this morning and did absolutely wonderful there too)

Also, I had another issue with a staff member today. We had a student on the floor and I am all for people learning, I mean you have to start somewhere right? I had a student give me her first catheter when I was 6 months pregnant with Arley and suffering from kidney stones, so if I can trust someone to do something extremely painful to me on her own for the first time then I can clearly handle someone doing my daughters vitals.

However, this particular student must have been intimidated by the fact that my daughter doesn't like to be touched and likes to have you ask her where to take her temp and blood pressure. So once the student did that, she wrote down the vital numbers and then left...

Maybe you should reread that last line again.... did you catch what happened? She left without taking any of the stuff off my daughter and caused my daughter to scream bloody murder because the cuff kept going off before I realized that it was left on.

Unfortunately the student did this twice before I told my daughters nurse that the student or any student for that matter wasn't allowed back into my daughters room. How can you forget something so simple? I mean really. You put the items on, you let it do its job, you jot down your info and you take it off. So easy my 2.5 year old could literally do it.

What I have noticed is that when certain nurses, PCA's and techs are on things go really great because we become used to certain ones. When they have their days off  (which they totally deserve) it seems that the people who replace them are just not as good. Some have terrible bedside manner, some don't listen to anything you have to say and some are down right snotty. Thankfully though there is one doctor in particular that I have nicknamed the "enforcer" because whenever I appear to be aggravated they always send him in to try and defuse the situation. Thankfully I really like him and he usually is very helpful.

Arley is finally feeling better, ate her dinner and is finishing up a snack. I can't wait for her to go to bed for the night because she has had such a long hard day and we still have another test to go through tomorrow. It seems like each test brings a much harder recovery. She cries and screams for a good solid hour upon waking up from sedation that it's getting harder to keep a positive attitude and not show my own emotions because listening to your child have reactions that way to what has been going on around her is super hard. It literally hurts my heart to see her in such pain. Regardless though we have to keep positive and keep moving on because theres more tests around the corner.

For now I am off to go watch a movie (Felicity an American Girl) with my daughter and hope that sweet dreams soon come over her and she relaxes well for the remainder of the evening. Until next time friends. xoxo