Keri - how do complications affect TP-ICT

[Guest guest]

Hi Keri

You really have been through so much. Your veins sound like Joey's.

He once came from a procedure where they tried to start an IV while

he was under sedation, with an IV in his shin. His arms, feet and

everywhere imagineable looked like he had been hit by machine-gun

fire. The IV was in his bone as a last resort. He also has such

severe scarring in his veins that nothing can be thread in. They

used a premie IV last time and they had to run things really slowly.

None of this was a problem as far as his surgery was concerned. The

fact that he had multiple abdominal surgeries made things a little

more difficult, but that had no effect on the outcome. It was the

cause of him losing his spleen during the surgery. We didn't do

anything special to prepare him for surgery. He was already in the

hospital because of the line infection he got 3 days before. His

pain control after the procedure was very good. He had an epidural,

in addition to a PCA. The most horrible thing for him was when his

lung collapsed, they had to do chest PTs. He had a fresh incision in

his chest where they had just removed his port, plus all that was

involved with the surgery, and they were pounding on him. It broke

my heart! One other problem he had that I have not heard of from

anyone else is that, we had no idea beforehand, but his pancreas was

infected. They always culture the islet preparation before putting

it in the liver. His grew an ugly bacteria and they had to treat him

very aggressively because they were concerned about his liver. Thank

God, everything worked out perfectly in the end.

Suzanne