Day 103 (39/1)

Asher had his eye exam this morning and Dr Snyder, as we figured, has called in a for a second opinion from Dr Wiggins…

The anticipation is killing us 🙁

Dr Wiggins will determine if Asher can be discharged tomorrow or if he’ll need to be rushed into eye surgery…

Dr Wiggins will be in the hospital around 7pm tonight so we probably wont have final word until 8pm-ish tonight…

RSV Season

It’s RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) season and Asher’s neighbor (we overhead a phone call from one of the nurses) has RSV. RSV can be deadly to newborns, especially preemies…

Dr Lipsky was highly recommending us consenting to Asher receiving the Synagis shot…

The Synagis shot is a polyclonal antibody shot and is not a vaccine by definition (no virus, no aluminum adjuvant, etc). We confirmed with the pharmacist and our own research that this shot does not have any aluminum in it. For adults and older children RSV is merely the common cold, which we know we’re always at risk for and is why we opted for him to receive this treatment as a prophylactic. It’s a monthly shot through the season…

We don’t plan on taking him anywhere anyways. But with Aiden in school and in basketball, we figured this would be a good safety measure (no guarantee though that Asher wont get it).

Home Setup

The only thing missing from our home health setup is Asher 🙂

We have his Oxygen Concentrator, Pulse Oximeter & Apnea monitor ready to go…

We’ve been coaching Aiden on what to expect and how to properly hold Asher once he gets here (washed and sanitized hands, not touching his face, no kisses, covering his face, etc etc)…

The overnight stay at the hospital was rough due to all of the reporting we had to do and the schedule we had to stick to. We’re thinking it’ll be a smidge easier once he’s home as we’l be making some adjustments to his schedule and wont have to track anything…

We’re also ready for his graduation shindig tomorrow!!! 🙂

If you didn’t get an invite, make sure you reach out to me or Monica for the details…

I’ll update this post later tonight to confirm our grad party for tomorrow…

Stay tuned…

11:20pm – Dr Update

Dr Wickens was finally able to make it to see Asher tonight…

His conclusion: keep him in the NICU one more week and reevaluate next Wednesday. Next week will be a for sure “surgery or go home and follow up.”

According to Wickens, Asher does not meet the “classical criteria” for laser surgery but he’s close…

The problem: if Asher is discharged but needs surgery, he’s no longer a patient of the hospital but rather would be a patient of Dr Wickens. The problem with this is Dr Wickens and every other specialist in his field in the state of Nevada doesn’t take Asher’s insurance…

So we run the risk of Asher needing surgery but not having the ability to get it in time because of the hold up with getting him re admitted and permission for re admission from the insurance company…

This sucks, but it makes sense to fight to keep him in the Nicu. Our battle tomorrow: see if insurance will even allow him to stay one more week. It’ll be up to Dr Wickens written recommendation and Dr Lipsky’s ability to convince insurance that he needs to stay…

Postponement of graduation will be confirmed tomorrow. We will keep everyone informed the moment we get the call from Dr Lipsky…

Stay tuned…