Day 488 - James' Suction Machine Died

Monday, May 2nd, 2022

James played a lot with his toys. Mom worked on insurance issues, supply orders, and doctor appointments. You know besides laundry, meds, bottles, dishes, feedings, G-tube venting, the usual. If you find yourself with nothing to do, then you're forgetting to do something.

Over the weekend James' suction machine died. This is an emergency, and can be a life or death situation. A patient can get a mucus plug or choke on their secretions. Without a working suction machine, you would need to disconnect the patient from the ventilator and use a catheter to suck out any secretions with your mouth. It is awful but in an emergency you will do what you need to do. It turns out the DME supply company does not have any portable back-ups. Not surprising whatsoever! They do have a non portable suction machine, the size of a car engine and sounds like a lawn mower. They said they could send someone from Melbourne by this evening to drop it off. Well the delivery driver dropped off this machine. Oh man this guy really hates his job.

This is why it is so important to have backup equipment. Mom had asked Dad for Christmas for a backup suction machine. Thank goodness! A life saving gift! Why did we still have the DME company to send this massive lawn mower suction machine? Because of this very situation we're in. You always have to have a backup! Since our personal suction machine is portable we don't have to cancel any of any of our appointments. If we relied on our DME company you would have to cancel any appointment due to the suction machine not being portable. It only works when it is plugged in.

We are also supposed to have a backup ventilator but the one we currently have makes the most unnerving high pitch noise, sounding like it's going to explode any minute (yep it's broken). And we haven't had a replacement on that since February!

James loves to nap with his bean bag on his face. 😂

P.S. Do you follow James' journey? James would love to read an email from you. His email is JamesWestonAbramowitz@gmail.com. How heartwarming for him to receive these and fun for you to get a response from him in like 10 years...