8/29/06: Day 46 (Tues.) Settling down in Sierra Vista

The little guy finally made it to the Sierra Vista Hospital around 5:30pm. Ironic that the UMC nurse (Marnae) who was with him on his helicopter flight was the same nurse on his ambulance ride. It was nice to see her familiar face while he was being settled in to the nursery. She said he slept the whole time, so he was no trouble.

The SV nursery was a little hectic...intially, they weren't going to accept him today since they were anticipating a lot of deliveries. Dr. Tsai from UMC called earlier in the day and said they were pushing for the transfer and she was making some calls to the higher-ups at SV. I got the call around 4pm that they were enroute.

Evan has his own little room in the nursery with a sliding door, so it keeps out a bit of the noise. I don't think noise bothers him all that much since he's been exposed to it since birth in the NICU. The nurse was going to switch him into a crib from the open warming table, so he'll be sleeping in something similar to what he was up at UMC. His pediatrician (Dr. Ettinger) said there may be another baby moved into the other spot in his room.

They have his oxygen level on .7 to see where he is in the higher altitude....he was doing well (maxing out at over 100% some times), but then other times when he was upset, his levels would drop. Their sensor is a bit different, so it would cut in and out sometimes. They had the alarm set to go off whenever he went below 88%, so you can imagine, it went on and off a lot.

So, I'm trying to learn the routine with the new hospital. This is a big change from UMC but a big step in getting him home. His room is right by the door into the delivery room OR, so no doubt, we'll be seeing a lot of babies come and go!

---------
UMC Charges: $320.50
AirEvac Charges: $2,300.00
Southwest Ambulance Charges: $1,572.78
SVRHC Charges: $1,434.74
Running Total: $328,129.81
---------