The Latest

After another one-month hiatus, I will write about what's going on in life.

As always, first thing's first - Mia. Since I last wrote, she has actually had her surgery. To every one's benefit, the surgeons were able to put the ends of the esophagus together. The passage is tight, and it will never be normal, but it's finally there nonetheless. She had a rough first couple days - requiring blood pressure support, and suffering from massive swelling. A little over a week after surgery though, and she was almost her normal size and ready to be extubated. That's when the real trouble started. The day after extubation, she was having a lot of wheezing. After a bad chest x-ray and a bad blood gas several hours later, the decision to reintubate her was made. When we went in the following day, we got the full story from the neonatologists. Her right lung, without the aid of the vent, was incapable of moving air appropriately, and was unable to stay fully inflated. With the kind of surgery Mia had, one in which people go messing around the middle of her chest, there is always an inherent risk of damaging one or both of the following nerves: those that control the diaphragm, and those that control the vocal cords. It would seem that the nerve serving her right diaphragm was in some way damaged - stretched, bruised, or lacerated - who knows? While flat out having cut it is less likely, it's not a zero chance.


None of this is the end of the world. As long as the nerve wasn't grossly separated, the function will return. However, nerves grow very slowly, like a millimeter a week. If it starts to appear as though several weeks are going go by without improvement, there is a short-term solution. Another surgery. They would go in and tack down her diaphragm to help keep her lung open. She would just have to learn to use all of her accessory muscles to breathe - they do this when necessary and babies do just fine. The real problem is that we just don't know how much waiting will be involved. Depending on how she does, she may just have to remain on the vent for an undetermined amount of time. This throws a huge pipe wrench in the idea of getting her home by April 1st, now only a week away. And when they do get her off the vent successfully, however that may happen, she will still need an undetermined amount of time to learn how to swallow well enough to go home. She's nearing 100 days old, and still not home. I can't really talk about it any more.


In other news, we are getting a house. We found a house put up for sale by a graduating resident. It's in an optimal area, still in West Little Rock (though not near as far west as we currently are), and at an excellent price. We first saw it the same day Mia had to go back on the vent. Then, this past Saturday, we just had to have a second look. After this, we decided to make an offer. And after learning that three others had done so the same day, we were glad we did. Because of his profession, and my rapidly approaching one, he was more willing to do whatever it took to work with us above the other bidders. I guess it helps to be in the medical profession where one can draw upon many connections and then get even more. At any rate, we won the bidding war fairly easily and are still getting a great deal on the house. Pending a good inspection and appraisal, we close on May 1st. Since he doesn't finish residency until June, we won't move in until June 7th or so. But I still think we'll be OK. He will just pay us rent between closing and when he is able to leave. Below are pictures:


























And finally, the match. I, of course, matched into my intern year here. But that's really no surprise since it was a guaranteed spot. At any rate, the match stats were difficult to swallow this year. Out of 22,000 available spots, 30,000 applicants filled most of the spots. There were over 1,000 US seniors who didn't match. This is scary, considering there are only 15,000 US seniors for those 22,000 spots. Too many foreign medical graduates - end of story. More and more students are graduating every year, with great jumps in numbers yet to come. And yet, there aren't more and more residency spots since the Medicaid system is broken. This means nothing but doomsday for future graduating medical students. Sorry guys - I have nothing to suggest. Apply widely, and more importantly, apply yourselves before that point even comes. Then - you should have no problems. Oh yeah - and don't keep your expectations for yourself too high - you'll only disappoint yourself.

Stay posted, if you will. Keep thinking. Keep praying.