Done and Done

We are home from the hospital!! We went in yesterday morning to get Zander's picc line placed. When we got there the doctor and nurses were a little concerned at the swelling in his right arm. They told us that he might need to be admitted, so he could receive proper care. I could only think about one thing at a time and first I wanted to get the picc line in him and then we could worry about his right arm bleed.

The actual procedure was so quick, maybe 30 minutes. When we went back to see him he was still out (probably getting the best sleep of his life). They did a chest x-ray to check the picc and it was in a perfect spot.

Then the excitement started. The picc nurse went to change the dressing and it was soaked with blood. The hematologist came in and said just make sure it is getting lots of pressure. I started to get worried as I watched them try and get the bleeding to stop, I mean it was like watching a movie, this didn't work, let's try this....this went on for a while. Many doctors and nurses were coming and going and there was a lot of quiet talking. By the time Zander's bleeding was under control he had lost a lot of blood, when the doctor said, "he needs a blood transfusion" I got sick.


Here is what happened, even with the massive doses of factor before and after the procedure, the inhibitor was doing what an inhibitor does, it eats up the factor. Further more, he is having a pretty good bleed in his arm. There is only so much the factor can do, there were just too many issues going on. Zander was admitted to the hospital and was getting his special factor (Novo 7) every two hours. At one point they also gave him a HUGE does of his regular factor(Advate), trying to trick that stinking inhibitor.


This morning his numbers all were looking better (the blood transfusion did its job) and we drew blood (ironic right) for more tests. The tests came back that the inhibitor was down, and his clotting factor was up. WE DID IT! We fooled the inhibitor.


Now, we are doing that massive doses of Advate daily. With the picc line we are able to do that at home. We still will have to go to the center to have the dressing changed and to have a lot of labs done to monitor factor level and the inhibitor.


Zander was back to himself this morning, getting into everything in his hospital room and was thrilled to leave. His arm that started all this is covered in a pretty impressive bruise, reminiscent of my dad's bruises.

Here are our hospital chronicles.