Happy Birthday!

So for Critter's birthday he got a new central line! We figured this is more than we usually spend on the other kids so we can't feel too bad. The central line is a line that is placed into the superior vena cava, a large vein that enters the heart. This will serve a few purposes. 1. He will no longer have to have an IV. IV usually only last around 3 days and can become sluggish this goes into a bigger vein and will not go bad like an IV. 2. They can do blood draws off of this line. He is going to have blood drawn to test blood levels at least once a day and this line will save him pokes. 3. The chemo drugs are incredibly toxic especially to tissue so with a central line there is more control of exactly where the drugs will go. The central line does come with a few risks. If infected it can be more serious so it is important that we keep it really clean and use sterile technique on any dressing changes. But all in all the procedure went well and hopefully it will be a great benefit for us.