Prayers Worked!!

Thank you all for your prayers for today's blood test...God was listening...it went very well! We got a call this morning that it could not be done at our home, so we had to go to a lab to do it. As it turns out, the tourniquet could be on for the test...little did I know. We went to the Woman's Hospital this time (all a part of God's plan....because we almost went to the Baton Rouge Clinic again...the only reason we didn't is because the home health nurse did not fax the orders like she said she would). No one at Woman's knew anything about doing the test without a tourniquet...I put up a huge fuss about it because I wanted to cover all bases to be sure that Lydia would not have to repeat this test...she's had to do that enough lately. They sent in the supervisor to talk to me about it...I said that I would not be comfortable with it until I talked to Dr Superneau to be sure. I called his nurse and he was working in Houma today. She paged him and called me back after she asked him about it...the deal was: the question is not whether the tourniquet is too tight....it is that it can't be on for too long...which means: it can be on to draw the blood as long as it doesn't take a long time to search for the vein in advance...Alleluia!! If only I had known that the three times before that we had this test done...I just assumed that the lab at the clinic was right about not using the tourniquet. The supervisor at Woman's explained this to me: if there is no tourniquet...when you put the needle in the vein and draw with the syringe, it creates a vacuum which collapses a baby's tiny little vein and there is no way to draw the blood. The tourniquet helps to keep the blood flowing so that doesn't happen. That explains why the techs at BRC would say that they knew the needle was in the vein...they just couldn't understand why the blood would not flow (the vein was collapsing). As a result, they had to stick her about 4 times in order to get it successfully. The tech today stuck Lydia ONE time...very easily...and drew the blood. Lydia was barely bothered by it at all! :) Then, the vein stopped bleeding..and she needed just a little more, so she did a heel stick to get the rest...Lydia did not even flinch! I felt proud of her for being brave, but I also felt sorry for her because it seems she's getting used to it. :(

Thank you all again for your prayers! I know that the events of today were no coincidences...just answered prayers. Thank you God!