Virtual School

The decision was made to move ahead starting ATG without the PICC line and that meant benadryl as preparation.  Benadryl meant Annie fell asleep.  After an hour she woke up and was ready to "go to school."  When she was in home-isolation for four months in first grade her school helped her patch in to class using Skype and a laptop.  Since then there have been a lot of technological advances and now she is able to patch in using an iTouch at school and an iPad at the hospital.  She was ready in time to attend a special event at school, the fifth grade mass.  Annie was able to watch the entire mass and she said her responses and sang along to the songs from her room.  It made her very happy to see her classmates and stay connected.  After mass she "attended" Spanish class.  In the afternoon she was unable to patch in as she went back to sleep.

When I arrived after lunch to begin my 24-hour shift they had begun the ATG and she was still asleep.  I was informed we needed someone with her at all times to check for shortness of breath, chills or rashes.  Sure enough not twenty minutes after arriving she went into chills with heavy shaking that woke her from her sleep.  Within minutes there were six medical professionals in the room.  It wasn't one of life's better moments but it was amazing to watch highly trained professionals work in a stressful situation.  The ATG was stopped and she was given prednisone.  The shaking stopped after about ten minutes.  Later the ATG was resumed and has been going smoothly since with a couple increases in rate.  Even so it will continue well into the night and then she'll get a transfusion of red blood cells.  Then in the morning back to another round of ATG.  In between there are doses of tylenol, benadryl, prednisone and cyclosporine.

She is scheduled to have a PICC line inserted under general anesthesia on Friday.  Will report on our nocturnal intrigues in the morning.