Up In The Air

As with all things Jordan, there are too many variables to stick to a firm plan. Granted, the last few months things have been plugging along fairly well (note: she hasn't been admitted to the hospital since late October 2007, miraculously), but now that the date for the gi-normous hip surgery is nearing, things seem to be falling apart. The ENT wants to get tubes in, adnoids out, but the ortho won't do the hip surgery on Monday if the adnoids need to come out today. He's too worried about infection, and the hip surgery is (technically) elective surgery. So, we'd have to cancel that and re-schedule, which could be as much as 3 more months, which would then put us into the summer months for the almost-full-body spica cast. BLECK!

In addition, the anesthesiologist at Shriner's is wary of Jordan in general. Her "baseline" is lower than most in terms of breathing and oxygen saturations, and those anesthesiologists are really obsessed with breathing! I guess they think it's pretty important. . . . So, he's on the verge of canceling the surgery, too, and already booked her a bed in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, since Shriner's is an ortho hospital and doesn't have any ICU beds or staff. Apparently it's uncommon to have to send a kid to the PICU after a surgery at Shriner's, and even more rare to plan to do that ahead of time.

Then, to top it off, she seems to be coming down with a cold, so the whole thing could be game off if that progresses in a bad way. Right now she's holding her own, just a bit of coughing and sneezing (which would be a lot for a normal kid, but not that much more than normal for Jordan -- but, frankly, it looks bad to an untrained eye).

So, after ~3 months of (mentally & emotionally) preparing for this hip surgery, I'm a wreck now that things are getting all discombobulated. I don't want to be doing the spica-thing in the summer, and I do want her breathing & ears to be healthy. But "breathing stuff" is messing everything up. I guess it's really out of my hands at this point, and I just need to "be Gumby" about the whole thing and try to remember that it will all work out in the end, eventually.

And for now, off to the hospital!