Of Lines, Fevers, and Gut Instinct

As a parent, you know when something is wrong with your child.   It’s a gut instinct. It’s often inexplicable. You just know.  Which is precisely why the ER doctor’s words brought little peace: “Chase’s counts are really good, so we will be able to give him a broad spectrum antibiotic and then you should be on your way.”
Within an hour of that conversation, the prescribed antibiotic touched off the real reason for the fevers and Chase’s temperature rose alarmingly (105.8) while his blood pressure dropped. In this moment, the parental gut had been correct and we went from preparing for discharge to preparing for many more hours in the ER and even the possibility of needing to move him to the ICU.
After almost eight hours on the emergency floor, Chase stabilized in such a way that everyone involved felt comfortable sending him to the Hem/Onc floor (his second home) and bypassing the ICU.  Thankful.

Nine Hours Later…
This morning, the doctor came in to inform us that the blood taken in the ER shows early signs of an infection. At this moment, they are still in the process of testing the bacteria and gathering information, but if this is the case; it will be Chase’s second line infection in as many months. There will be a best case scenario of a couple weeks of antibiotics and a worse case scenario in which the line itself is the issue and may need to be pulled (read: more surgeries and peripheral IVs).  And with all of this comes a certain amount of parental self-doubt… What are we doing wrong? How are we mis-caring for the line in such a way that he lays in a bed, shivering and whimpering while his body fights itself?
Ultimately, in this moment, there are no answers as to what the next day or week holds. We will continue as we started…
With grace upon grace… Moment by moment.

(picture: finally leaving the ER; moving from the transport into his room…all the cords)