Saturday, October 01, 2011

It's a bright, sun-shiny day!

[written yesterday but blogger didn't let me post until now.]
I woke up this morning and had to walk all of two metres to touch my daughter - I could see her from where I was laying.

I held her while I was wearing my PJ's.

I did not ride a lift or climb flights of stairs until after 10am - and then only because I wanted to.

Right now if I look around the room I cannĂ³t see another single person other than Kaylee and the peace is amazing.

When I go outside, I know which direction to walk to get to a supermarket, bank, restaurant or anything else I may want and I know I will not get lost and miss expressing or changing Kaylee's nappy.

This afternoon I will see my children and they will have travelled for under an hour to come and see me and will be going back to their own beds tonight.

These things are AMAZING.

Tomorrow Kaylee will have her last dose of antibiotics and after that she will be a puncture free baby! The antibiotics, by the way, were prescribed because a blood culture came back with Golden Staph which was probably a contaminant because Kaylee was not sick enough to have Golden Staph! Also her two lumbar punctures came back inconclusive. They got a little bit of blood in them so it is likely that the white blood cells were from that rather than her body trying to fight off meningitis. But we had to treat for these illnesses even though we suspect she did not have them because we simply could not take the risk with her heart issues etc. I am frustrated at the added trauma that this caused however I am also happy that we did not CONCLUSIVELY have these illnesses because that would have made for a very sick baby. Kaylee had her drip re-inserted last night after it "tissued" (poked out of the vein into the tissues of her arm) but the Dr got it in the first time which is amazing (officially the second time ever someone has got a vein first try on Kaylee) and if anything happens with this drip they are not going to put another one in so they can conserve her veins. They will just give her last bit of antibiotics as an injection. As of tomorrow Kaylee's only medical bling will be her NG tube and some monitoring wires - YAY!

Once she does not have an arm splint on for her drip, I will be able to put her in some comfortable warm clothes and she will go to an OPEN COT. Yes, my baby girl in a big girl cot! A well girl cot anyway. This week we will look at changing her from continuous feeds to bolus feeds (every hour to start with, then every few hours etc.) and once she is tolerating that fine (could take a day, could take a couple of weeks) we will look at feeding her partially with a special bottle for kids with cleft palates and other issues. Any food she takes orally is fantastic however we need to make sure she doesn't exhaust herself and use more calories than is in her food when she is using the bottle. She needs to grow and get strong enough for her heart operation.

I am loving my Launnie nurses and doctors so far. I am also getting far more rest here than anywhere else we have been so far which is doing me good. I am a fairly comfortable NICU Mum now because I have started (respectfully) bossing the doctors and nurses a bit and helping myself to supplies from their special cupboards and drawers. The doctors and nurses actually love this and the more hands on I am, the easier the nurse's job is and the sooner we get home. Everyone's a winner!

We are getting so much closer to home.

Thank-you Lord!

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