Port surgery

Jordan went downstairs at 9am for her surgery to put the port in and to have the other two tests done. We met Dr. Martinez, he is a general Pediatric Surgeon. He is putting in the port. Dr. O will be conducting the other two tests.

Dr. Martinez talked with Jordan, Danny and I before the procedure. He mentioned that there are possible complications during the surgery and that one of them would be in the case that he has to use a needle to find her vein. If he uses a needle, he takes the risk of puncturing her lung, and would have to then put a tube in her lower rib cage to re-inflate the lung. This news really scared Jordan and she started crying. Needless to say, Dr. Martinez doesn’t seem to have a very good bed side manner.

I’m amazed at how Jordan’s condition and high anxiety level are not communicated as she is passed from floor to floor for different tests. She is very anxious, as any normal person would be. The problem with her anxiety is that it escalates and then her body becomes very tense, which causes her back pain to skyrocket. She then becomes nauseous and vomits, cries a lot and it is hard to console her.

When Dr. Martinez told her the possible risks of the surgery, she basically lost it. Here is a girl who already has to deal with so much, she didn’t need to know the risks of the surgery. He could have told Danny and I and it would have been fine, but he just blurted it all out, without any regard to her feelings. I did pull him aside and asked him not to share anything else like that in front of her again. We would tell her that kind of information if we felt she needed to know about it and could handle the information.

Luckily the surgery went fine and there weren’t any complications. The port is now available for the nurses to access for whatever reason necessary.

The results of the bone marrow and spinal tap will be back in about 24 hours.

After she recovered from the surgery they took her back to her room. She didn’t stay there very long, because they moved her to the Cancer Institute wing of the hospital. Dr. O wanted to make sure she had a room in that wing, because Monday’s are normally very busy with a lot of patients coming in for treatment. She is now in room 228 on the Pediatric Oncology/Hematology floor. This floor consists of Pediatric Cancer patients as well as those who suffer from blood disorders like Sickle Cell Anemia, Hemophilia, etc.