Disagreements about When We're Going Home

It turns out that one of the viral cultures that were done on Lynnea came back positive; she has Parainfluenza, which is a flu virus that isn't particularly serious, but can cause some serious respiratory problems (like pneumonia or bronchitis) in infants. There isn't anything they can actually do to treat the virus, and since Lynnea started coughing last Monday, she should be on the tail end of it, and is probably past any significant risk for complications. She has been off from oxygen since yesterday, and has been doing fine.

This morning during rounds, Dr. Kochilas (one of the cardiologists) felt that we should be able to go home sometime today, or tomorrow, but before he would discharge us, he wanted to double check with Dr. St. Louis (Lynnea's surgeon) just to make sure that he was also OK with us going home. Well, Dr. St. Louis was in surgery all day, so we didn't get to talk to him until late this afternoon. It turns out that he feels that Lynnea should stay here at least until Wednesday, or Thursday. Dr. St. Louis' reasoning was that, babies that have had a Norwood procedure, but haven't had the Glen procedure (the next heart surgery that Lynnea will need) are at a high risk for having things go very badly if they happen to catch a respiratory virus like Lynnea has, so he feels that she would be better off staying here so that if she is showing any signs of a respiratory infection (like pneumonia) we can recognize it right away and treat it as soon as possible. On one hand, I understand his desire to use some extra caution where Lynnea is concerned, but at the same time, it's not like Lynnea is receiving any sort of treatment right now -- like I said before, she's off the oxygen and breathing OK on her own, her cough is not as bad as it was when we came in, and there's nothing more that they can do for her to speed up her recovery in any way, so sitting here in the hospital until Wednesday, or Thursday seems a little silly. But, Dr. St. Louis seems to always have the final say in these things, so if it makes him feel better having her stay here, obviously that's what we'll do. I just hope that by Wednesday her cough is completely better so that he has no more reasons to keep us any longer.