To think that four hours was too long

[pamplem0usse]

My 4.5 mo DS needed a medical procedure on fri that required a cannula.
Four doctors attempted for two hours before calling an aneasthetist to have a go. He tried for another hour and a half and failed. There are at least fourteen puncture wounds in his neck alone, each representing several attempts.
I eventually called a halt to it as he'd not been allowed milk for five hours and the procedure would have taken another hour. He wasn't given any form of aneasthetic. They want me to go in for another try next week. would i be being unreasonable to insist we have it done elsewhere?

Yes they were. And it wasn't an emergency procedure. I felt bullied into letting them carry on :-( it was them against my son's chubby limbs

Oh my dear God that's awful

YANBU, your poor baby

Oh my goodness, the poor little mite.

And you having to watch that play out

I don't know anything about how 'normal' it would be for that to take so long, but just from being a parent myself, I would say of course you're not being unreasonable to want somewhere else to do it.

They've hardly inspired any trust, things may not work smoothly all the time, but when it's a baby (?) involved, other things you might think of outside the situation don't count.

How is he now?

How are you doing?

:( poor baby did they give you a reason why putting a cannula was difficult.

I'm afraid I might be thinking about putting in a complaint, or at least asking for a meeting to discuss this, OP. Sounds horrible for you, and him, poor baby.

'it was them against my son's chubby limbs'

That is just such a sad thing to write.

I have no experience of this but yanbu, your poor little boy, that's shocking

when dd2 was 18 months old she was in and out of hospital for about 1 year. One time she was in for 1 week and required canulas and blood tests etc.

The staff were amazing and would not have dreamed of carriying on for so long. One time when they struggled they stopped and postponed for a while and then tried a different approach. They had experienced well trained staff, but it did often take more than one go.

4 hours is too long, and too distressing.

He's very chubby and his circulatory system.is poorly developed. And the junior docs collapsed all the 'good' veins. He's doing ok I think :-s. Me, less so. The nice guidelines say noone should attempt more than twice vefore getting someone more senior apparently.

It took 17 attempts to put in one Canula in my 9 month old ds2 on Monday. Babies are terribly difficult to get visible veins from. My sons was an emergency though as he was horrendously dehydrated and at that point they also thought he had meningitis (was just very severe rotavirus) and he was only discharged yesterday. They said it was his "good covering" that made it so hard.

the anaesthetist said he's too little. He was v cross because DS's crying was making his neck a 'moving target'. and apparently he'd nevrr failed with w chubby baby before :-(

Was there a nurse present? It should have been their job to act as the patient's advocate and stopped the Dr's.

three nurses holding him down.

Oh how awful! Oh I feel terrible for him and you too! I hope he is better soon. xx

If it wasn't an emergency procedure then I think I would've called a halt before then.

Not sure that going somewhere else will definitely mean automatic instant success though - the number of doctors who tried & then getting an anaesthetist suggests that it was difficult... & sometimes it just is & isn't exactly fun for doctors involved earlier.

Being aware of the previous problems may mean that they can escalate to a 'Plan B' straight away next time with one of the more experienced doctors having the pick of fresh veins/distraction/?sedation if appropriate etc.

This sounds horrendous, your poor child

Complaint is most definitely in order, sound like a bunch of moronic egos to me, just disgusting.

That sounds awful. You are well within your rights to go elsewhere but maybe you should ask for a plan before you go into hospital so they get their best person to try straight away also ask for some numbing cream prior to the procedure and think what you can cope with for example 2o mins then we stop. All of these are reasonable requests and frankly for a non emergency proceedure your previous experience was not on. Something you can do to help is get him really toasty and warm before they start as that can help. Poor all if you, one of the nurses should if said stop.

OMG that poor poor baby UnMN {{{hugs}}} to you and your sweet baby. My first baby had to have blood drawn daily from about 4 days old, the doc used to position him just right and had the blood from his neck super fast, my poor baby didn't seem to even notice. I still couldn't watch.
I's pick a different place to get the cannula inserted, is there a childrens hospital anywhere in driving distance, they deal with little ones and poor veins all the time, you need the experts.

What would have happened had it been an emergency?

Good grief! What, no numbing gel or anything? Poor child. He must have been very distressed.

Do you mind me asking, what the procedure was, if not an emergency on a 4 month old?

Gosh that's awful for you and Ds. I would complain. You thought you were doing the best thing by letting them continue. In the future don't be afraid to stop them sooner.

My experience first came when Ds was 7 weeks old, and again at a year. I quickly learnt that one consultant was no good with trying to draw blood, let alone change a cannula and asked for a specific nurse to come and do it.

Some staff just aren't good with the teeny ones. And while it isn't an excuse for doing what they did to your Ds, 14 attempts for a non-emergency, along with comments about not failing before smacks of trying to prove they won't be beaten by a baby.

If it was an emergency eg - the baby had arrested - there are other methods that can be used in those situations.