Day +1!

Yesterday was the day! Sam got his cells back!

He slept great through the night and woke up feeling good. He played and read books all morning.



They started pre-hydrating him with extra IV fluids around 8:30. They pre-medicated him with tylenol, benadryl, and mannitol (to help him pee out the preservative after the transfusion) around 10:00. At 10:30 our nurse, Pam, and the nurse practitioner, Vicki, came in with the cells!



They hooked him up to the heart, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure monitors and he got situated in my lap. I was happy I was able to hold him because it was getting close to nap time and he would have been cranky if I had to put him down.



Vicki started the infusion around 10:45. They have a certain watch that they use every time to log the time everything takes place. Apparently it's been around for quite a while. Sam had no problems at all, he actually just fell asleep, so it only took about 15 minutes!



Immediately after she started pushing the cells Sam's breath started to smell. They had warned us about this... it has something to do with the preservative they use to store the cells. We had heard it described several different ways. Some said rotten tomatoes, some said creamed corn. My mom thinks it smells like pickles. I can't really describe it... I just think it smells nasty. I could taste it through the mask. For the rest of the day I would cringe every time he breathed directly into my face. It's a lot better today, though.



Later that afternoon we headed downstairs for his NJ tube placement. They knocked him out and got started fairly quickly. It was kind of cool watching them snake the thing though his belly on the screen, but it seemed to take a little while. The doctor was having trouble getting it in the right spot, but eventually she was satisfied with it's placement and they started waking him up. As he was coming out of the anesthesia he vomited, causing everyone to scramble around to turn him over, clean him up, and get a quick chest x-ray to make sure he didn't aspirate. The x-ray looked fine, but he was pretty darn ticked off. I carried him back up to the floor and when we were just a few steps away from his room he managed to rip the tape from his face and give the tube a nice yank. Good times.

So we headed back downstairs and we did it all over again. The second time they used a longer tube, so I'm kind of thankful that he pulled out the first one. The cap only came out to right above his ear... which is reeeally short. The cap on this one is all the way down his back.

They put these cuffs on his arms so that he couldn't bend his elbows, which made him even angrier and made me really sad. I'm not really down with restraining my child unless it's absolutely necessary for his safety. After we got to the floor we had to take them off to change his puked up onesie and I told the nurse I didn't want to put them back on. Once he was fully awake and had a chance to calm down he was fine. Every now and then he would reach up and poke the tube with one little finger, but all we had to do was tell him "no" and redirect his hands. I don't know if they used enough tape to anchor it, though...



What do you think? I think they could have used a little more. Duct tape, maybe?

Other than needing a few extra cuddles, he was fine for the rest of the day.



But he had trouble falling asleep last night and tossed and turned a lot. He was fussy this morning so they gave him a little bit of pain medicine. He had a nice little nap and now he's sitting in my mom's lap watching Sesame Street. :)

Now we just wait for him to start producing lots of good cells! Pray that he will get trough this quickly and as painlessly as possible! Thank you for all of the prayers, support, good vibes, and encouragement yesterday! :)