Medivac

 Wow.. it's been quite a week!   Calvin and I are sititng in our airconditioned room at Treetops Lodge in Cairns Australia while Chad and Sydney remaion back in PNG. I've done a bit of journalling about our medivac experience-- I've written about 5 pages already and I haven't gotten through all the details.

So, here's the story (in a somewhat shortened version)...
Last week Calvin started feeling sick (probably with a virus that has been going around school).  The virus triggered his asthma.  After a weekend on him feling really lousy and unable to keep down any food or liquid, I took him into our clinic.  He was a bit dehydrated, so they kept him at the clinic for dehydration and had me administer fluids every 5 minutes.  They were also a bit concerned about his breathing, but didn't make a big deal of that at first.  After a morning at the clinic, they sent us home with a promise to get more fluids into him, increased asthma meds, and prednisone.  We checked back in with the clinic that afternoon and they gave him a shot of meds that was supposed to help his breathing.  We had an appointment to return to the clinic at 11 AM the next day

After a restless night with a LOT of coughing, Calvin woke at 6:30 with a nose bleed.  Just as I got him cleaned up, the phone rang.  It was the doctor calling to check on him.  I gave him a report and he decided I should bring Calin in first thing rather then wait until 11.  

When we got to the clinic, his O2 level was low and he couldn't register a peak flow.  He was moved to the treatment room and put on a nebulizer.  It was at that point the doctor told me he wanted to send him to Cairns for treatment.  This was about 9 AM Tuesday morning.

Because Chad has not been working in his regular office this month, I was having trouble getting in touch with him.  I ended up leaving Calvin in the very capable hands of the clinic staff and driving out to the training centre to find Chad.  We rushed back to the clinic, talked with the doctor, and decided I would be the one to go with Calvin.  At this point, the director's office and aviation were hard at work doing all sort of important things related to an emergency medivac.  I made a quick call to the school principal letting him know of the situation so that he could make arrangements for someone to cover my class.  I also went to the finance office to pick up a bit of Aussie cash.  Finally, I headed home to pack and pick up important papers.

Typically, in an ememrgency medical situation, our airplanes are equipped to fly straight from Ukarumpa to Cairns, however, our passports and resident visas for PNG expired at the end of January and have been waiting in a government office to be renewed since mid January when we returned from furlough.  We needed those to travel internationally.  Our Port Moresby staff got to work for us, located our passports and managed somehow to get our new visas.

After sorting out all the details about the passports, flight plan, equipping the Kodiak airplane for a medical flight, dealing with medivac insurrance stuff, packing, and lots of stuff I'm sure I don't even know about....we loaded up for our 5 minute drive to the airstrip.

At this point, Calvin was requiring quite a bit of oxygen.  An oxygen tank was brought along in the van for the drive to the airstrip, but about halfway there it ran out. Calvin's oxygen levels was dipping down into the low 70's by the time we got the the aircraft.  He was quickly helped into the plane where they hooked him up to one of the on board oxygen tanks.  It took a bit longer to load up everything and handle all the details.  We finally took off around 1PM.  On board the plane were 2 pilots, a doctor, a nurse, Calvin and me. 

Our usual medivac plane, the King Air, is down for repairs right now, so we flew in one of our two Kodiak airplanes.  Flying time from Ukarumpa to Port Moresby int he Kodiak is about 1 hr 20 min so, at around 2:30 we touched down in Port Moresby.  We stayed in the plane while the two pilots cleared immigration and grabbed our passports.  Thankfully, we didn't have to refuel in Moresby, so it was a pretty quick stop.

Soon, we were back in the air with an estimated flying time of 2 hrs 40 min to Cairns.   Calvin remained stable during both flights with breathing treatments every 2 hours (we didn't have electricity onboard so he was getting treatments with an inhaler) and the oxygen support between 8 and 10 litres.  Once we touched down in Cairns, we were met on the tarmac by customs officials and an ambulance.  The two onboard oxygen tanks were nearing empty by this point.

I think we finally reached the emergency room at about 6:30 PM (We began our day at the clinic at 8:30 AM).  Calvin was wheeled in assessed, put on the nebulizer, blood work done, chest x-ray hooked up to monitors, etc.  The doctor and nurse came with us to the hospital to brief the staff there and stayed for a bit to make sure we were bieng taken care of.  They then left to get some food and a good night's rest-- they would be flying back to Ukarumpa early the next morning.  They did, however, take that time to go purchase toothpaste and toothbrushed for Cavlin and I (I had realized I forgot these shorlty after we took off).  I was very grateful for their thoughtfulness with that.

Once we got the hospital I knew I needed to let Chad know we'd arrived, but I couldn't leave Calvin and I didn't have a phone that would work internationally.  Thankfully, around 10:15 Chad figured out which hospital we were at and called us.  What a relief for both of us!

Around 10:30 they moved us out of emergency and into a triage area.  There were no available bed in the pediatrics ward, so we spent the night in this triage area.

Sometime during that first 16 hours, we learned a few things... Calvin's chest x-ray was clear (great news), hi blood sugar was a bit high (probably due to the prednisone and dehydration), his blood pressure was a bit high (many reasons for that), and his white blood cell count was low (indicating a possible viral infection).

Finally, around 11 AM the next day, we were moved to the kid's ward to a small, but adequate room.  Because of his cough and the fact that we were from PNG, we had to be in an isolation room.  So, there we sat for the next two days with occasional visits from nurses and doctors.

When we frst arrived at the hospital Calvin was requiring 6-8 litres of oxygen.  By Thurdsday morning we was able to be down to 1 litre.  Finally, the oxygen was turn off on Firday morning and we began talking about being discharged.  Because he hadn't been off the oxygen for very long, we were allowed to leave the hospital, but a having daily visits from "in home" nursing care until we see the doctor next week.

The plan is to stay here in Cairns unitl Calvin is medically cleared to fly and handle the altitude we live at in PNG-- hopefully sometime this next week.

Meanwhile, people in PNG have been wonderful about looking after Sydney and Chad who are still back in Ukarumpa.

We are so thankful to everyone who played a part in this experience.  Not just the doctors, nurses, aviation staff, director's office staff, member care staff, friends who are feeding my family in PNG, people who are filling in the holes I left at the school, but also those who have been and are still praying for us and those who have already helped with the extra expenses we'll have as a reult of this.

I could write much more, but this will have to do for now.

Thanks to everyone who is surrounding our family with Love and Support.