Thoughts

Some thoughts as I sit, once again, in this peach hospital chair,

To answer some of the questions I have been asked: While Carter was on CPAP (back a lifetime ago), he wasn't getting any feedings. He was on IV fluids first and then something called TPN, which has proteins and lipids for a little nourishment. Once he was on the vent and doing well, we started feeding him through his NG tube. We started with 6 ml and worked up to 80 ml (about 2 1/2 oz) every 3 hours. I would pump every few hours, taking my magazine into the pump room (and feeling a little dirty about it:) and saving my milk in the fridge/freezer. After he came off the vent, he took bottles of breast milk for a day before we started nursing again. He has done extremely well with his feedings, and I feel like we're starting all over again with the pains of nursing.

When he was on the ventilator, he couldn't make any noise. Sometimes the nurse would be listening to his lungs and would tell me that she could hear him crying, but we didn't hear a noise. Some nurses kept him heavily sedated (to the point that they would give him more meds if he started moving his arms around) , but one nurse (the one who was with him during the day on Monday-Wednesday) let him be awake more, as long as he wasn't flailing around, trying to get that tube out. That was when I shot the video clip of him looking around. I wasn't allowed to hold him until after he was extubated, which was so hard. Especially when I could see he was upset and I just wanted to crawl up on his tiny bed next to him to comfort him.

Now that he is doing better, he doesn't have a nurse with him all the time, which is nice, but also a lot more lonely. Carter isn't exactly a great conversationalist, and it gets a little lonely here clicking through the same channels over and over. I haven't seen much of Jeff at all. We pass each other at the hospital as one of us takes a shift at the hospital and the other takes the other kids home. It's like we're in a long distance relationship, resorting to sharing information over the phone, with frequent 30-second sightings. I know it's getting hard on Jeff. He isn't used to spending this much time taking care of a baby, and he has had to be here a lot so the other kids don't forget that they have a mommy.

It's also hard on me. There are moments every day where I feel completely spent, both emotionally and physically. I am not getting much sleep at all, which I know makes things harder, and we're now going on day 11, which is a lot longer than we thought we would be here. My brain is not functioning properly. I parked Jeff's 4Runner in the parking lot one day and accidentally left the lights on. Then I forgot that the car was here, and three days later when we went to go pick it up, the battery was shot. He had to get a new one. I completely spaced kindergarten registration last week and now have to figure out what I need to do to get Allie enrolled in school next year. I can't remember things that happened yesterday, much less things that happened a week ago. It's like my mind is clouded and I'm constantly trying to see through the fog.

The kids are, for the most part, handling things very well. They have been up to visit a couple of times, and they are more interested in eating all the snacks and begging to play in the toy room than they are in their baby brother. A couple of times I have tried to lie down and take a nap while the kids play, but that hasn't exactly worked out. Once, I put Damon in charge and told him I needed one hour without disruption. Twenty minutes later, he was banging on the door, frantic because Kyla had chosen that moment to dump half a bottle of fish food in the fish tank. Instead of napping, I had to suction as much as I could get, so the fish didn't overindulge.

Yesterday, I again asked them to let me lie down and put in some bright orange ear plugs. I invited Kyla to nap with me (hoping to avoid any more disasters), but she declined. A little while later, I felt her in bed next to me, trying to remove my ear plugs. I told her to leave them alone, and a while later she was asking Allie to get my chapstick for her. Allie asked where it was, and Kyla said, "in mom's ear." Apparently she hasn't been introduced to ear plugs yet.

Carter's progress continues to be slow. We had to put him on high flow oxygen because he was just breathing too fast, and the doctor didn't want him to wear himself out again. Again, it felt like a step backward when we should have been moving forward, but at least he has avoided CPAP again. His oxygen saturation is fine, but he still breathes about 60 times a minute, even with the increased oxygen. Ideally, he would be in the 50's with no outside help. That is the goal. That is what we are working toward. Today is the last day he has his antibiotics, so his PICC line can come out soon. His lungs sound good and his secretions are minimal, so we're just waiting for his breathing to slow down so we can start talking about when he can come home.