The word of the street

Ford had to get help with his kidneys yesterday and they emptied the PICU of family/visitors to perform the hour long operation. It all went well and is working great (i believe it is called a Nephrostomy) and this morning he was draining well as well as peeing lots on his own. The doctors seemed very pleased with this during their rounds. They have to have him 'dry' before they will close his chest and the word is that this will happen tomorrow, barring and bad behaviour on his part. We are doing our best to discipline him, but its hard with all the sedation and tubes and machines to keep him paying attention. He's been awake much of this morning and is pretty good at making (or else faking) eye contact with Christa and I from either side of the bed. That's pretty exciting for us. Every small indication that he is aware of us is incredibly rewarding, as these slow days of sitting at a bedside are mostly alienating.

He was having trouble with his left leg the last few days - a clot formed around the 'pic' line that they had inserted near his waist and he wasn't getting much circulation. It had gotten pretty swollen and purple. They managed to find a spot in his upper arm (its hard to find available veins to plug more things into these days) and were able to remove the one in his leg that was giving him trouble. They did an ultrasound of the area to watch the blood flow and upped his Heparin dose to help dissolve the clot that had formed. It seems to be much less swollen today and has changed colour.

Christa is visiting with him now and is accompanied by her step-mother Ruth as well as with our friend Paige, who flew out with her family from Vancouver to spend a few days with us here. Her 14 month old daughter Asha is busy exploring the Stollery hopsital, which I just have to say is one of the coolest hospitals I've ever been in - incredibly open and full of plants and natural sunlight. It occasionally feels like a really nice place to spend the afternoon.