Monday, June 06, 2011

Throwing a Fit!

This is Aaron's isolette with his puppy on top. They change his blankets every night and each night is a different theme. Tonight it was dogs. This quilt square on the the bottom was made by my amazing visiting teacher. I asked her to make this when we went to the hospital to deliver the first time, when we were told he was terminal. We wanted to have something to wrap him in. Its now always near him, she has since made me another one so I can frame it. Micky (my v.t.) is hands down the best v.t. there is. We have called her in the middle of the night to come sleep with our kids on more than one occasion. She has brought in meals and goodies, she has coordinated meals after Aaron's delivery. She calls and checks in regularly and asks for a "to do" list. She loves our kids and our kids adore her! She is has become another grandma to our family and we hug her every time we see her!
Sunday's are the days that Aaron's labs are now run. They are now only drawing blood and fluid one day a week to run all his tests. All the numbers came back good except his sodium level. It was a little low but that is easily fixed with a supplement once a day in his feedings. We were assured this is a normal thing. It seems like we hear that a lot. I would rather hear its normal than the alternative though!
Last night the dressing on Aaron's pic line needed to be changed. This was quite the ordeal as everything needed to remain sterile and the process seemed to drag on for a long time. Aaron was a champ through the hard and painful part but by the end he was having a fit. I can't blame him, it looked so uncomfortable. Three of us were holding him through the procedure. Twice I had to sit down because I was so light headed. By the end I could tell Ronny was too. Afterwards the nurse wrapped Aaron in his blanket and handed him to Ronny and told him to cuddle him until he calmed down. I was so relieved she allowed us to hold him and soothe him. It still took us another 1/2 hour of singing and talking to him to get him to go back to sleep. We pushed off weighing and measuring him during that "cares" session just to calm him down. We called later and found out Aaron is now at 440 grams, his head is now 23 cm (I think) and his length is still 25.5 cm.

I don't know if Ronny holding Aaron was "allowed" but we love this nurse as she is one to do what is needed as opposed to what the rules are sometimes. Talk about a "mother bear" protector, she is just as feisty as Aaron and will get on other nurses who talk too loud near our room and will question guidelines that she feels shouldn't apply to Aaron's case. She's the one who started the ball rolling on allowing me to hold Aaron and is the one who is actively pushing for his feedings. She is our first primary nurse. We asked her a few days ago and found out she was primary on a set of twins. We came in the next day to find a letter from her saying she had a sweet experience with Aaron that night and he melted her heart and she took herself off as primary on the twins to be Aaron's nurse. She is wonderful and we love her!

Sam and I came home from church early yesterday. I needed to pump and he wasn't feeling well. We took his temperature and found it was over 101. We are not sure if this is related to his surgery or not. He was still running warm this morning. He has a follow-up appointment with his surgeon today so hopefully we will figure out what is going on. I'm supposed to have my skin-to-skin time with Aaron today so this poses a problem. Until we can figure out what is going on with Sam I won't be able to hold Aaron. Hopefully its something easily resolved and won't land Sam back in the hospital either. We don't need a repeat on that performance!

2 comments:

Meg said...

Oh, I so hope Sam is ok!! Your nurse sounds wonderful. A good nurse can make all the difference!

Jen said...

Denise-- I just had to write and tell you that I check your blog everyday! I just love you and respect you so much as a mother and a friend. We will be praying for you!