Finally, we can bribe him with candy

Well, we're still in the same ol' PICU room; there was no room for Shaney on "the floor".

No biggie.

Shaney did, however, get a new Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter ("PICC line" for short). It's like an IV, but way more like an alien tentacle that pierces your skin, slithers into one of your arm's veins and laces itself all the way through to the top of your heart...the superior vena cava, to be exact. In other words, it's an IV on 'roids.

PICC lines are much more durable and effective than regular IV lines (what with the business of dumping meds straight into the heart n' whatnot). That's good because it looks like Shane will continue his antibiotics through the PICC line when we get home (Thursday? Maybe Friday?)

Shaney's PICC experience: there are two meds that the PICC nurse gives kiddos before inserting the alien tentacle; versed (pronounced "verr said") and ketamine (pronounced "kett uh mean"). Versed has a nice general chillaxing effect while ketamine is a disassociative narcotic used to confuse the brain as to what the heck is going on (it was explained to us that it essentially disconnects the brain from the body, not allowing the kid to pinpoint where the nurses are working on their body).

We left our room and went to the waiting area at 4pm so they could work on Shane. The PICC nurse (yes, this is all she does all day long and she's very good at it) said we'd be back in the room by 4:30 or so. 4:50 rolled around and we asked the front desk gatekeeper to call our room to see if Shane was done getting PICC'd. He wasn't...

Ky started to panic, as did I, but I wasn't very worried. Ky semi-frantically blurted a single uniword, "Whatdoyouthink'sgoingon?!" "Not sure," then I posited, "if I had to guess, Shane was more of a firecracker than they bargained for, they had to calm him down and give him more drugs...and that's what we're waiting on."

Sure enough when we got back into the room, the previously-cool-as-a-cucumber PICC nurse was frazzled and bemused, as though she just saw a shrieking child ghost (because she basically just did). Apparently, Shane had a "bad trip" on the ketamine (which, oh by the way, is also in the same narcotic class as PCP/Angel Dust...tap, tap, tap...is this thing on? I just said Angel Dust! Holy cat fur chinchilla coat on a unicycling chimp...ANGEL DUST!!!) They were also supposed to take out the central line IV from Shane's groin, but it was all they could do to keep him in the room. Shane was given a quick double dose of versed to further his chillaxedness and reduce the bad-acid-at-Woodstock effect.

The double kicker is the fact that this very talented and very experienced PICC nurse has never seen anything remotely like that in a toddler before. You see, ketamine isn't given to anyone ages 10 and up due to the violently wicked trips it can induce in that age group...but this nurse had never in her career witnessed the same reaction in a three (almost four) year old. Further proof that Shane is an old soul, wise beyond his years...but then we didn't need ketamine to tell us that.

After the surgery Shane was a loopy, balloon-swatting smile basket. So what does a concerned father do in a time like this? Busts out the iPhone and records his kid sending a quick message to all his well-wishers, of course! And here it is:

Click on this to listen to Shane saying "Hey everybody...thanks for praying...I love you!"

Shane has had a tough time keeping his oxygen saturation consisntently above 90%, so now he's wearing a nasal cannula. How did we get him to do it? Like this blog entry's title says, we can finally bribe him with candy (I don't think that tactic would have gone nearly as well just prior to Shaney getting on the Flight for Life chopper: "Hey Shane, if you just calm down and let these nice-but-frenzied people stick a tube down your throat, you'll get three green Mike n' Ikes!") Then again, I suppose I did promise him the biggest bestest ice cream after this is all over...maybe that's why he's doing so well!

In all seriousness, he's doing so well because God has placed His healing hand on Shane's body; and He's also mobilized everyone around us—and seemingly around the world, I'll explain later—to surround us in the warmest most peaceful embrace a family could ask for.

Thanks again...and no, I'm not giving any of you versed or ketamine, stop asking.