Meeting with the Surgeon

Well, the meeting with the surgeon went pretty well. He was very nonchalant about it. He said that the actual procedure will take less than an hour in which they will place the portacath under the skin, hopefully on the left side of his chest. We will arrive at the hospital an hour or so before the procedure for him to get a factor treatment to get his levels up before the surgery. He went over the risks with us, the most serious being a punctured lung, but he did say that has never happened to him during this procedure. There is also the risk of anesthesia but I don't want to think about that. The surgeon said that after the procedure, we would then be admitted into the hospital by our hematologist. They will need to leave the needle in the port during our 7 day hospital stay so that they don't have to stick him on that sensitive skin every time they need to give him factor. At the end of the 7 days they will remove the needle before we go home. The whole appointment only lasted about 45min after which David and I left feeling a little lacking. The good thing was that this particular surgeon has done this procedure before on Hemo kids and seemed very familiar with their specific needs. He was also the one our Hemophilia doc. recommended, so that's all I need. I don't need his bedside manners to be good, just his surgical skills :o)

NOW, I will say I'm TOTALLY stressing about staying in the hospital with a 16mo for 7 days...even if it is Children's Hospital. They have tours set up for families to get a good visual idea of where we will be moving into next week. We are doing that on Sunday, so I'm trying to hold off on getting too wound up until I can see what it's like. The good thing is I have Olivia's birthday party this Saturday so that's keeping my focus away from everything.

Stay tuned for an update after the festivities this weekend :o)