A slice of miracle

Apparently yesterday's tentative plan to extubate Izzy this morning proved to be way too optimistic. Yesterday, the secretion in her lungs seemed to be thinning out and decreasing in volume, so it wasn't unreasonable to assume that the tube could come out today. However, you should never underestimate the vicious, persistent, tricksy ways of Izzy's mucus: a boatload of whitish/yellowish thick gook is being suctioned out of the Bean's lungs again today. I don't know if the medications are breaking up the already existing mucus-pockets hiding out in her lungs or her body is producing more yuck.

Yesterday Beanie ran a 102 F fever but it subsided last night and haven't returned since. She also vomited and had a big poopy blow out but fortunately it wasn't due to a secondary infection that would have needed a different antibiotic. The awful person I am, I was unapologetically gleeful about the fact that I didn't have to clean up the big colon cleansing poop explosion, which was the outcome of the Miralax and antibiotics interacting with the week-worth poopy build-up.

While this prolonged intubation is driving me crazy nuts, there is some awesome news: Izzy's VNS surgery was approved by the hospital administration as an impatient procedure. For those of you whose psyche is still intact and hasn't suffered any assault from the insurance/medical industry, let me elaborate on the significance of this decision.

The hospital doesn't allow inpatient VNS surgery because insurance doesn't cover the price of the VNS device when the patient is admitted. When someone is hospitalized, Insurance pays for their care per day (I think it's about $10,000/day). Since the VNS implant costs about 15 grands, the hospital understandably doesn't want to eat the cost.

Therefore, we were prepared for having to wait for Izzy to be discharged from the hospital just so she can be re-admitted as an outpatient at the hospital's outpatient center. It would have been absolutely insane to extubate and discharge Izzy just so we can turn around, bring her back, re-intubate her and double her risks, but we have come to terms with the absolute insanity of the dealings of the medical insurance industry.

However, by a miracle, which I have no doubts was brought about by your prayers and cyber-rooting, the hospital administration (God bless them abundantly) approved the impatient procedure and Izzy is getting a VNS implant tomorrow at 10AM.

I'm still kind of waiting for someone to show up and tell me that it was all a misunderstanding, but our doctor said he talked to the chief financial administrator of the hospital who gave his consent.

So Izzy can have the surgery done while already admitted and intubated in a controlled, familiar environment where the doctors and nurses already know her and take good care of her and where we know and trust the staff. Hallelujah!