Thursday, December 4, 2008

Another Spinal Done

Ben had a spinal tap this afternoon. The procedures are usually scheduled in the mornings for kids but due to some scheduling issues this one needed to be in the afternoon. Ben was a pretty good sport about not being able to eat or drink anything - a trooper as usual.

The PICC center was very busy and a bit behind schedule. Because Ben was so eager to get things started Ben's amazing and wonderful nurse, Karen, got a room ready for him so he wouldn't have to wait any longer. They take such great care of us!

There were some issues getting him asleep. Due to the fact he gets weird and terrible hallucinations from the Ketamine the doctors tried to just give him Versed. During his last spinal it took 3 ccs (or whatever the measurement was) to put him out...but this time he was extremely stubborn! Even after 6 ccs he was still chatting away with the doctors and nurses. They finally gave him a very small dose of the Ketamine and it knocked him out right away...but only for a few minutes and then he was very chatty again. It is very strange as a parent to be talking to your 8-year old and have them be totally wasted! Luckily he came out of it pretty quickly and we didn't have to stay at the hospital nearly as long as I feared we would be there. We are back home and Ben is feeling great and so excited to be able to eat.

We just received a call from Karen letting us know that his numbers look great. White blood count is 3.6, Polys 2117, hemoglobin 13.3 and platelets at 229,000. Because of the good numbers they are increasing his medication doses up to 75% of normal levels (they had been reduced down to 50% last week because of his ear infection and low numbers).

All is good here!

1 comment:

Julie said...

I haven't read through all of your site but our docs use propofol for anesthesia. Does that work for Ben?

And I seriously feel for him not being able to eat. I wait with Alyson to eat on her spinal days. The next one is Monday but we got an earlier appointment.

Great counts Ben!