Home Sweet Home

Corny, but so true. We got a surprise discharge on Wednesday and have been running ever since. We were totally unprepared. Tom had the wrong truck down at UVA so he could pick up some lumber. So he had to drive an hour and a half home and then drive back, but you know hospitals. It took us nearly 8 hours to actually be discharged. Which meant we got home, had to do a bolus feed, Tom had to go pick up a prescription, I had to set up the pump and IV pole, get all meds organized and get the boy to bed. Stresses me out and will continue to stress me out til I'm used to it. See, if I had a good sleeper, I wouldn't worry so much, but there is a tube attached to a hole in my son's tummy and he tosses, turns, cries, and occasionally runs out of bed at night. Not to mention eventually ending up in my bed.

Here's how the first night's experiment went:

Hooked him up close to 8, sat on his mattress while he went to sleep. Alarm went off at 1am to turn off pump, woke up James, scared him, and he puked. Cleaned him up, went back to bed, alarm went off at 2am to turn pump back on. James fussy for next 3 hrs til alarm went off at 5am to turn pump off again. Never really went back to bed.

Next night:

Same start to the night, woke at 1am to turn pump off, no puking. Alarm went off at 2am, pump back on. Barely back to sleep at 3 am when James starts throwing up. Clean him up, turn pump off, alarm goes off an hour later to turn pump back on. Another hour after that, alarm goes off to turn pump off again.

So let's just say this wasn't working. New plan: increase bolus amounts and frequency and do drip feed from 8pm to 1am and be done. This is working much better. Has only had one vomit, and that was due to waking up in the middle of the night barely able to breathe because of a cold/allergies and his still irritated windpipe and vocal chords from the breathing tube. This was pretty scary at home and we had a nice chat with the pediatrician on call at 1am. He got better with some steam breathing and we went to the dr on saturday morning. There he was put on some steroids to help his throat. Helped soooo much and we're very glad we did it.

At this point though, I was feeling the need to lower my expectations for Mother's Day. Turns out I didn't need to. I had such a great day and got completely spoiled and somehow I'm a little hungover this morning. We had some wonderful friends over all afternoon and evening, and we ate, drank, and had a very fun Easter egg hunt. I'll post some pics later. In the meantime, I'll be planning my spa day my husband gave me, our trailride we're going to go on to see the mountain laurel, and our 3 day vacation in FL we will take once James is ready to have a few days with Nonna. It's okay, you can be jealous.



Tom brought cheese, pate, apples, and champagne after he fell asleep and we picnicked (I know, could be worse, right?)

Had to give him his paci once