Today we went to Frederick Memorial Hospital for Jack's blood draw (for the allergy tests). The nurse practitioner, Elaine, is amazing at blood draws. If there's a vein she'll find it! Once we went to the lab and got all the tubes we found out they needed 12 cc of blood which is the maximum volume you can take from someone Jack's size. Because it's such a large volume and there was no good venous access Elaine decided to do an arterial stick. We wrapped Jack in a blanket and I held him down. Elaine had to put the needle in on the inside of his right wrist. It makes me cringe to think of that! Another nurse handled pulling back on the syringe to get the blood. Jack was NOT happy when Elaine stuck him but surprisingly didn't fight us at all. He cried - mostly tears with not much noise. It all went really well and we got the sample really fast because it was from an artery. When it was done I thought I was going to fall down and James was gray and sweating. Jack perked right up when we unwrapped him and I held him and when we opened the door and he saw all his old nurses he was waving and smiling. They gave him this HUGE cookie for being a good boy but I think it was really so James and I could eat it and have some sugar because we were both so pale and woozy. We're such wimps. I don't mind blood at all but I HATE having to restrain Jack for procedures and tell him it's OK when I know it hurts and it's not OK. James hates watching Jack cry and especially the blood draws.
We were hoping to get enough blood for 3 tubes to send to Mass General for their CDH Study but we needed all 12 cc for Jack's lab work. We'll have to hold onto the tubes until his next draw (which I hope isn't for a very long time!).
Our little guy is still one touch cookie. Let's just hope we get some useful info from the bloodwork. Hopefully he won't have a food allergy. I still think it's the dye and if we go organic he'll be fine.
Vic
1 comment:
Wow, that is a LOT of blood. Poor guy, and poor parents!
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