*Note: this post was written last week but I wasn't able to post it because there was no wifi at the hospital
Saturday, January 16, 2016
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve got some odd quirks. If you know me personally you may have picked up on the fact that I have a habit of occasionally dropping L’s, particularly in words such as aLmond or chipotLe. I unintentionally combine metaphors - my husbands favourite is “BLAH BLAH BLAH”. I have mild (undiagnosed) number dyslexia - which makes shopping online a nightmare because I can’t tell if I copied out my credit card number properly! I know all the numbers are there but I can’t tell if they’re actually in the right order. And Chris just LOVES when I read out street addresses to him ;) And, one you all have probably noticed by now, I am the WORST at spelling. Actually though. That combined with the exhaustion over the last few weeks has made for some rather humorous errors in my posts. My personal favourite however is the post where I was talking about the air in his chest cavity and how they thought they may have punctured his lunge. Not lung, lunge. Don’t get me wrong, I love lunges too! Great for lifting your ass! But I think you may need to lay off the beans if you’re leaking air from your lunge. lol. I thought about going back and editing a few posts… and I have corrected a couple… but it’s kind of an inside joke to me at this point. And for whatever reason, my A type personality doesn’t seem to mind it all that much. But I digress, back to the baby updates.
Saturday, January 16, 2016
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve got some odd quirks. If you know me personally you may have picked up on the fact that I have a habit of occasionally dropping L’s, particularly in words such as aLmond or chipotLe. I unintentionally combine metaphors - my husbands favourite is “BLAH BLAH BLAH”. I have mild (undiagnosed) number dyslexia - which makes shopping online a nightmare because I can’t tell if I copied out my credit card number properly! I know all the numbers are there but I can’t tell if they’re actually in the right order. And Chris just LOVES when I read out street addresses to him ;) And, one you all have probably noticed by now, I am the WORST at spelling. Actually though. That combined with the exhaustion over the last few weeks has made for some rather humorous errors in my posts. My personal favourite however is the post where I was talking about the air in his chest cavity and how they thought they may have punctured his lunge. Not lung, lunge. Don’t get me wrong, I love lunges too! Great for lifting your ass! But I think you may need to lay off the beans if you’re leaking air from your lunge. lol. I thought about going back and editing a few posts… and I have corrected a couple… but it’s kind of an inside joke to me at this point. And for whatever reason, my A type personality doesn’t seem to mind it all that much. But I digress, back to the baby updates.
Rounds
Since it was Saturday Chris was able to come with me to the hospital in the morning. We had planned on waking up with lots of time so we wouldn’t have to rush, but between the mounting exhaustion and the addition of the “long” drive (as opposed to walking two blocks), we made it just in time for rounds. Again I woke up drenched in sweat from fever, and I’m pretty sure I was starting to smell gross again. We cleaned up quick, grabbed our things and were out the door. The plan was to drive in two cars to my parents house to drop off their vehicle from the night before and then head to the hospital… but their car wouldn’t start! It had been so cold outside that we were pretty sure it was from not plugging it in. We tried to get an extension cord out to the vehicle but couldn’t get it to reach, and our other cord was frozen to the ground and won’t be moving until the spring thaw. Ugh… so we quickly called my parents, explained the situation and took off for the hospital. Chris had a bunch of work to catch up on since he’d missed most of the first two weeks back at school and was planning to go home at noon to get stuff done.
Rounds seemed to go well, and we liked this positive trend! But apparently James had had another fussy night. He wasn’t allowed to have any more chloral, so when his N-PASS (Neonatal Pain, Agitation, and Sedation Scoring) went up over night they had approved him for Phenobarb (phenobarbital - an anticonvulsant used for seizures but also for treatment of withdrawal symptoms from certain drugs, such as morphine). He looked really sleepy, almost limp, and very out of it. Turns out his morphine withdrawal was worse than we had originally thought. Some of the symptoms were sneezing (which is SUPER cute to watch… but then you feel bad because you know it’s a withdrawal symptom), water loss in stool, and severe irritability. According to our neonatologist the withdrawal symptoms could last up to 3 weeks after his last dose, which had only been a week ago. My poor little guy. So they decided to try treating his withdrawal with phenobarb to help take the edge off. Withdrawal is tough on adults, so I can’t imagine what he’s going through. But otherwise we were moving forward with feedings and supplementing through the NG tube to promote a positive experience while ensuring near full feeds. We were advised that the longer I could stay, and the more feeds I could get in, the faster we’d be discharged. Since his feeding schedule was 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm etc. and we’d arrived at 9am that day we arranged for me to stay until just after his 8pm feeding to get in 4 feeds.
Since it was Saturday Chris was able to come with me to the hospital in the morning. We had planned on waking up with lots of time so we wouldn’t have to rush, but between the mounting exhaustion and the addition of the “long” drive (as opposed to walking two blocks), we made it just in time for rounds. Again I woke up drenched in sweat from fever, and I’m pretty sure I was starting to smell gross again. We cleaned up quick, grabbed our things and were out the door. The plan was to drive in two cars to my parents house to drop off their vehicle from the night before and then head to the hospital… but their car wouldn’t start! It had been so cold outside that we were pretty sure it was from not plugging it in. We tried to get an extension cord out to the vehicle but couldn’t get it to reach, and our other cord was frozen to the ground and won’t be moving until the spring thaw. Ugh… so we quickly called my parents, explained the situation and took off for the hospital. Chris had a bunch of work to catch up on since he’d missed most of the first two weeks back at school and was planning to go home at noon to get stuff done.
Rounds seemed to go well, and we liked this positive trend! But apparently James had had another fussy night. He wasn’t allowed to have any more chloral, so when his N-PASS (Neonatal Pain, Agitation, and Sedation Scoring) went up over night they had approved him for Phenobarb (phenobarbital - an anticonvulsant used for seizures but also for treatment of withdrawal symptoms from certain drugs, such as morphine). He looked really sleepy, almost limp, and very out of it. Turns out his morphine withdrawal was worse than we had originally thought. Some of the symptoms were sneezing (which is SUPER cute to watch… but then you feel bad because you know it’s a withdrawal symptom), water loss in stool, and severe irritability. According to our neonatologist the withdrawal symptoms could last up to 3 weeks after his last dose, which had only been a week ago. My poor little guy. So they decided to try treating his withdrawal with phenobarb to help take the edge off. Withdrawal is tough on adults, so I can’t imagine what he’s going through. But otherwise we were moving forward with feedings and supplementing through the NG tube to promote a positive experience while ensuring near full feeds. We were advised that the longer I could stay, and the more feeds I could get in, the faster we’d be discharged. Since his feeding schedule was 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm etc. and we’d arrived at 9am that day we arranged for me to stay until just after his 8pm feeding to get in 4 feeds.
The other big news of the day was they had approved him to have his PICC line removed! We were so excited! And with that, Chris and I settled in for some baby time. Mid-morning Chris’ parents came to visit. Since we were only allowed 3 at bedside I took off to the “parent lounge” (it’s not very loungey, or cozy, hence the quotation marks lol) to start writing my blog post from Thursday. Of course this is when I realized that there was zero wifi in this hospital so I couldn’t actually format anything or write the update on the actual blog. Microsoft Word it is. By 11am my father-in-law and I switched places at the bed side since it was time for James to eat. The feeding went well! He was getting faster at latching and showing a bit more stamina then he had before. Once we were done I headed to the pump room to finish up. But when I came back everyone was gone and there were 2 nurses and a doctor at the bedside. Turns out he was having his PICC line removed RIGHT THEN! I put my things by his bedside and headed out to join the family in waiting. It is crazy how small that PICC line is! I mean, the tubes that were visible externally from his head were really small, but the internal line was TINY! It makes sense, but my goodness it is crazy when you actually see it. Baby was almost free of lines! The only things left were his heart rate, respiratory, and SpO2 monitors and his NG Tube. One step at a time.
Take With Food
Chris had to go home around 12:30 to get some marking and exam prep done and his parents left at the same time giving me some time alone with baby before my parents arrived later that afternoon. I had been in a rush that morning and hadn’t really packed a real lunch but I figured I’d be ok with a few easy grab items. I brought a protein bar, and a couple oranges. In retrospect, this was not enough food to hold me over until 6:30 when Chris was planning to come back. But I also forgot that the pharmacist had told me to take my medication with food. So at 2:30 I took my medication for the mastitis and thought nothing of it. Until 20 minutes later when I was hit by a wave of intense nausea, headache, and exhaustion. You know that feeling when you take a vitamin that’s too big or you don’t chew your food enough and you feel like it’s stuck in your throat? Yeah, it felt like that. That paired with the urge to throw up constantly. It was miserable. They were not kidding when they said you need to take that stuff with food. I certainly won’t forget that again. And I don’t often take medications in general but the few times I have I’ve never experienced the side effects before. With this stuff, I’m getting them all. Like all of them. Ugh. Just what I needed. Lack of sleep, feeling sick from the mastitis, and feeling sick from the medication to treat the mastitis. Bad combination. Plus I was stressing out because between the lack of food, water, sleep, and taking the medication my milk supply had been abysmal that day. I was pumping every two hours to make sure I was stimulating the ducts, but it wasn’t helping! If our discharge was dependant on feeds, and I wasn’t producing enough milk now, when would we leave! I was psyching myself out for sure. And while I was aware of the fact I was being extra critical of myself I couldn’t shake the feeling because I just didn’t feel like I could cope anymore.
Thank goodness for mom’s though. I lamented my poor estate of affairs and right away she packed up some food and headed to the hospital. She was going to come for a visit anyway, but she hurried things up when she heard I needed help. I love my mom <3
Chris had to go home around 12:30 to get some marking and exam prep done and his parents left at the same time giving me some time alone with baby before my parents arrived later that afternoon. I had been in a rush that morning and hadn’t really packed a real lunch but I figured I’d be ok with a few easy grab items. I brought a protein bar, and a couple oranges. In retrospect, this was not enough food to hold me over until 6:30 when Chris was planning to come back. But I also forgot that the pharmacist had told me to take my medication with food. So at 2:30 I took my medication for the mastitis and thought nothing of it. Until 20 minutes later when I was hit by a wave of intense nausea, headache, and exhaustion. You know that feeling when you take a vitamin that’s too big or you don’t chew your food enough and you feel like it’s stuck in your throat? Yeah, it felt like that. That paired with the urge to throw up constantly. It was miserable. They were not kidding when they said you need to take that stuff with food. I certainly won’t forget that again. And I don’t often take medications in general but the few times I have I’ve never experienced the side effects before. With this stuff, I’m getting them all. Like all of them. Ugh. Just what I needed. Lack of sleep, feeling sick from the mastitis, and feeling sick from the medication to treat the mastitis. Bad combination. Plus I was stressing out because between the lack of food, water, sleep, and taking the medication my milk supply had been abysmal that day. I was pumping every two hours to make sure I was stimulating the ducts, but it wasn’t helping! If our discharge was dependant on feeds, and I wasn’t producing enough milk now, when would we leave! I was psyching myself out for sure. And while I was aware of the fact I was being extra critical of myself I couldn’t shake the feeling because I just didn’t feel like I could cope anymore.
Thank goodness for mom’s though. I lamented my poor estate of affairs and right away she packed up some food and headed to the hospital. She was going to come for a visit anyway, but she hurried things up when she heard I needed help. I love my mom <3
Later that evening Chris came back to the hospital. He was sweet as always and brought me a home cooked dinner (for those of you who don’t know, my husband is a much better cook than me and does most of the cooking in our house). I asked him if he’d gotten all his work done, since I knew he had just received a beta test code for a new video game that was only available for 48 hours and video games are his favourite way to destress. He said he got a lot done but hadn’t quite finished. I kind of figured this would happen, and I was mildly annoyed that he went home to destress when I don’t have that as an option, but I love him and knew he needed to keep himself charged to better take care of us and still function well at work.
After James evening feed they nurses were given the go ahead to take off his SpO2 monitor since his saturations had been consistent since transport to Winnipeg with only very minor desats that fixed themselves within moments. That made for 2 sets of wires and tubes removed today! Progress! Before heading home we stopped by Barley Brothers to celebrate my best friend Julie and her fiancé Rishi's birthdays. It was nice to get out and do something normal for a change. Between breastfeeding and antibiotics there were no adult beverages on the menu for me so of course I had to ask for my go-to obsession lately: Root Beer. But they didn’t have any! How?! They offer over 100 kinds of beer at that place, all on tap! How do they not have Root Beer! So I got my second favourite, ginger ale… and the server felt for me and didn’t charge me for the pop. Thanks buddy :) We headed home a little later than I would have liked (11:30pm) but to my surprise I walked into the house and things were looking more organized! Turns out that yes, Chris did play his game for a little while, and he did get most of his work done, but the rest of the time he had been busy cleaning and putting things away to help us get a little more settled. Then I felt guilty for being annoyed with him earlier, but I should have known that he would do this. He is so kind, and is always looking out for me. Here’s hoping for a better nights sleep to help me recharge.
After James evening feed they nurses were given the go ahead to take off his SpO2 monitor since his saturations had been consistent since transport to Winnipeg with only very minor desats that fixed themselves within moments. That made for 2 sets of wires and tubes removed today! Progress! Before heading home we stopped by Barley Brothers to celebrate my best friend Julie and her fiancé Rishi's birthdays. It was nice to get out and do something normal for a change. Between breastfeeding and antibiotics there were no adult beverages on the menu for me so of course I had to ask for my go-to obsession lately: Root Beer. But they didn’t have any! How?! They offer over 100 kinds of beer at that place, all on tap! How do they not have Root Beer! So I got my second favourite, ginger ale… and the server felt for me and didn’t charge me for the pop. Thanks buddy :) We headed home a little later than I would have liked (11:30pm) but to my surprise I walked into the house and things were looking more organized! Turns out that yes, Chris did play his game for a little while, and he did get most of his work done, but the rest of the time he had been busy cleaning and putting things away to help us get a little more settled. Then I felt guilty for being annoyed with him earlier, but I should have known that he would do this. He is so kind, and is always looking out for me. Here’s hoping for a better nights sleep to help me recharge.