Karsie Gets a Bath

No Holding

With as much good news that is happening, it gets harder and harder for us to not think that Karsie is ready to go home today (even though we know that she is not even close).  

We met with our surgeon, Dr. Saenz, and one of the neonatologists, Dr. Knight, one of our primary nurses, Lindsay (who we're still not sure if we're spelling correctly), and a social worker to talk about Karsie.  

First and foremost, the decision was made that we would not be able to hold Karsie for a while. They plan to evaluate that decision regularly, but it sounds like it could be as long as a month before she is able to be held again.  We went into the meeting with two expectations.  Either they tell us yes.  Or, if they tell us no then we needed a good explanation.  Dr. Saenz was good at giving us a good explanation even though the answer was not at all what we wanted to hear.  He is concerned that because Karsie's patch is basically shaped like a mushroom (very top heavy) any movement is cause for concern.  The problem is not the holding; the problem is the transfer, which is where many accidents take place.  He seems like he just really wants to be ultra conservative with it so nothing else goes wrong since it is going so well.  We were able to live with that response (there was much more, but that was the basic idea).

The good news out of all of this is that Dr. Knight said we could do all her cares (providing nurse comfort).  Also, we were able to arrange Karsie's little condo (with Dr. Knight's help) so that we can get closer to her so there's a quasi-hold happening.  We really felt like she was wanting to help us with not only Karsie's emotional development, but our emotional needs too. 

A bummer meeting, but we are somewhat at peace with it.  We just need Karsie to be a skin-growing-machine so we can get out of there and take her home.