Slight Change in Surgery Plans

Yesterday Katharine talked with Elias' surgeon about his rescheduled esophageal dilatation, and doing it on Tuesday rather than Wednesday. Other than it being the day before Thanksgiving, the real reason for the change was that the urology surgeon has decided to go forward with the first part of Elias' hypospadia surgery. This way the first part is out of the way and we do not have to wait until January. Elias will more than likely stay overnight in the hospital and it should only be for the one night, as long as there are no complications.

Otherwise, Elias seems to be doing better with his respiratory status. He has been getting an oral steroid, Prednisolone since Monday. This and the more frequent and higher doses of his neb treatments seem to be doing the trick. His secretions have been less thick and lower in volume. He is still having some difficulty finding a comfortable sleeping position, which is naturally causing irritability due to lack of sleep. We are just glad he is improving and that it was simple. I think some of it is in part due to the number of trips we have had to make in the last few weeks to doctors' offices. The fact that he had to sit in the waiting room for about an hour at the orthopaedic's office, exposed to everyone, did not help either. It is the beginning of cold and flu season and the flu is already in full swing here according to our pulmonologist. So we have to be very cautious.

Still nothing new with the nursing. Still no leads and we were fortunate last night to find a nurse at the last minute who will now become part of our normal back-up team. Again, the 8 nurses we have failed to come through with helping to cover the open shift. All in all, things are quiet here. We are exhausted and behind on everything around the house. We know that is to be expected, especially since we have been shorted so many nursing hours. It is just mildly annoying. We will keep you posted on the surgery scenario. Everyone take care!