Back at home and doing good

Nora’s port replacement didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had all hoped it would but the old one is out, the new one is in, she’s doing good and we’re back home. What Dr. Crooms expected to be a 45min. – 1hr surgery turned into a 3.5hr surgery yesterday morning. There were complications with threading the catheter in Nora’s chest vein but the amazing Dr. Crooms stuck with it and got it in. Since Nora was under for so long and lost a good bit of blood she was kept in the NICU last night and given a blood transfusion. She has three small incisions, one on the right side of her chest where the old port was removed, one on the left side of her chest where the new one was placed and one on the left side of her neck where an incision was made to guide the catheter.

Nora had a rough afternoon after her long surgery. On top of being sore from the procedure her newly placed line clotted off and had to be replaced which entailed taking the dressing off her newly cut skin and stuck with a new needle. We were all holding our breath until a new line was placed hoping that it was just the huber needle line and not her brand new port. (wheew~) Having to put a new port needle in right away was very painful for her so she was given a dose of morphine which ended up making her throw up. But thankfully after that she settled down and was able to get intermittent periods of rest.

Dr. Crooms came in first thing this morning and gave Nora’s discharge orders. We are all happy to be back home and have been resting up today after a long night. Nora definitely had some anxiety last night staying in the hospital but she was a very good girl and we are so proud of her for being so tough. As soon as she heard Dr. Crooms say she could go home she was all smiles and ready go.

If you zoom in on Nora’s face you can see her happy smile behind her balloon with her eyes on the prize, the elevator. 🙂
(as you can see Nora’s face was still quite a bit swollen this morning from the blood transfusion and all the IV fluids)