Out of PICU - into the NICU (Sort of)

Jereth was well enough to be moved out of pediatric ICU yesterday, but the infant floor is full so he was moved to the newborn ICU as a "boarder". That means he gets the care he would have received on the infant floor, but we have the restrictions of the NICU -- no eating in the unit, only two visitors at a time, no cell phone calls in the unit, and parents are not allowed to stay at the bedside overnight.

So for the second time in his life Jereth spent the night in a hospital without either parent (the first time was on Christmas Eve so I could be with the rest of the family at Grandma's for Christmas Morning). He survived and so did I, but neither of us was happy with it.

He's doing better, but the doctors in this unit are talking like it will be Wednesday at the soonest before they'll feel comfortable releasing him. Someone from the cardiology surgery team is supposed to come talk to me today about rescheduling the surgery. I was told over the weekend that we woud have to go home and reschedule through the surgery department - I sent word back that if we leave without a firm date for the surgery we will go to Portland for the surgery (that is what Dr. Walker's nurse and I agreed on when Jereth got ill and the surgery was postponed).

From my point of view the surgeon in Portland is much more concerned about Jereth as a person than anyone here at Primary Children's. It has been like pulling teeth to get the
surgery finally scheduled here, with everyone shifting blame and responsibility for following through. Dr. Walker had to call multiple times before they finally gave us the 10th of March as a surgery date. This was after they refused to do the surgery in December when Jereth was transferred by air ambulance from Boise to get it done.

Dr. Walker began talking with the Portland surgeon after we had waited over 3 weeks for a date from Primary Children's. She had just made preliminary inquiries about getting Jereth's surgery done in Portland then while she was visiting with him on the phone about another patient he asked about Jereth and how he was doing.

I think I would rather have someone who cares enough to ask about Jereth by name without prompting do his surgery instead of having it done where we're always feeling like we have to beg to get a scrap of attention from anyone on the cardiology team.