Date:         17 Oct 1995 12:17:52 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Harvey Chao" <Harvey_Chao@smtp.svl.trw.com>
Subject:      Re: cargo hauls- harvey cha

                      RE>>cargo hauls- harvey chao's list          10/17/95

we wanna know what the IV pole is for!!!  
  ray

============


After a while,  some things just seem to be taken as a matter of course --  My
wife and I have been foster parents for years, lately for medically fragile
infants.  The current youngest in the family is an ex-foster child that we
have obtained a guardianship for, and requires a whole flock of assorted
medical stuff, fortunately, decreasing as she has grown over the last 3 years.

The IV pole supports what is known as a "Kangaroo Pump".  What's a Kangaroo
Pump he asks? - our youngest and soon to be 4 year old was born with a host of
medical problems at 26 weeks and 1 lb 10 oz.  Some of the fall out of that is
that she has been a rather sever asthmatic and can't/wont eat by mouth. 
Therefore:  the doctors made an incision through her abdominal wall into her
stomach and formed a tube called a stoma.  They insert a plastic valve through
the stoma.  We pour a special "formula"  called "Pediasure" into a plastic bag
that hangs from the IV pole and is pumped/metered into her stomach by the
Kangaroo pump.  Hence, when we travel with her we need to take a machine
called a nebulizer, her kangaroo pump, the formula, feeding bags, assorted
medications, pulse oximeter, apnea alarm, her O2 supply tank with assorted
tubing, humidifier bottle etc.  Fortunately, in the last year or so she has
improved to the point that we were able to eliminate the O2 stuff.  

Obviously, with as many in the family, and the various needs of the kids, we
don't go very far from home (and especially the doctors/hospital) or too long.
 What we have taken to is renting a house at the beach about 50 miles from
home for a week or so vacation.  The hospital is about 45 minutes away "just
over the hill" and so we are fairly comfortable with thoes arrangements.  

The vanagon is an amazingly versitile vehicle that will carry all of us,
properly seated and seatbelted, plus all our stuff, and the kids have a  hip
and shoulder room so they aren't jammed next to one another. I guess the
reason the family is so big is that after our own 2 children, we have obtained
guardianship and adoptions of 5 of our previous foster kids and currently and
another 2 year old foster child in our care ( she has her own personal IV pole
and accutraments)..  It does keep us off the streets a night (if for no other
reason than 2 of the kids have bad lungs and problems with the night air when
outside).