Saturday, May 17, 2008

Riley Venting

So, Chris is almost asleep with Dumbo playing in the background, Daddy is out for a run, he thought he might check do little exploring, maybe run the canal-1 perk.
I thought I'd take a few moments to do a little therapeutic venting.
1. The Roommate Situation: Our roomies this time are SO much better than last time. I didn't write about it last time, but in May 2006 when Chris had his last surgery we had more than just a little drama. Parents of a 3 month old were having unknown feeding troubles and they'd admitted him, dad's mom tagged along. Apparently she'd been tagging along since birth, and Mom was more than a little tense. There were numerous verbal spats, but the night before we left, it all came to a head with a shoving match in our doorway, so much so that security had to be called, and all three were hauled away, leaving baby alone. Oh, and Pastor Bill was visiting us at the time. It just left us all in shock. Blessedly, Chris slept through it, but he was 5 1/2 months old at the time. This time, he's not. I did NOT want a roommate. Our first trip, we had 10 roomies in the NICU, then we had our own room, which was AWESOME! The second trip our roomie had a shunt in her head that she had to have a CNA monitor her all the time, which really meant whoever was on duty was watching tv for 23 hours and actually doing something for maybe 1. Anyway, this time, our roomies are nice, no fights, they like to go for walks, only the extended family staying at the Ronald McDonald house can get a bit noisy during visitation when we're trying to get a boy to sleep.
2. Getting Chris something to eat or drink. We swabbed him, and he sucked all the water off the swab and wanted more. He hasn't been allowed to eat or drink, I get the impression he'd like to, everytime I break out a drink, he asks for some. But first we had to get a plan from the doctor. The resident on call didn't show up until 10, and then he was like, looking at us, so what are you feeding him? What's he eaten? Hello?! These guys were clueless. It really felt like he was just wanted to pass the buck to someone else. My head says, they are just the surgeons, they cut, they don't know the whole scoop or story, but I know Dr. West usually follows up pretty thoroughly. She said yesterday we'd have like tube feeding training class. Well, it's almost noon, not only has he not had anything more than saline, and I've only had a smoothie that my MIL dropped off in a cooler. If I'm hungry, I KNOW he is.
3. Chris won't pee. Chris hasn't had any significant urine output since the surgery. We've only changed 2 diapers since we got here: a fresh one right before surgery, 9 p.m. last night, and 9 a.m. this morning. There were only smudgies of poo within, so he's probably getting plugged up too. The nurse called the resident at 9, saying he hasn't peed, and they suggested "changing his tube". She came in, set up to do some procedure, starting pulling the bandages off (making Chris object highly), and said, Oh, he doesn't have a button? No. It's going to be 3 months before he gets a button. So, she says, hmm, I'll have to see what the doctor wants to do about that. Dr. flakey resident didn't do anything about it when he was here. He just said, oh, order a bladder scan. The nurse clarified, one of the other units has a bladder scanner, that the nurses can use. So, they're asking this poor nurse to leave her patients and come scan Chris. I'm thinking that's going to take a while. Dude. I could walk down to radiology faster. Then again our nurse is inclined to cath him, but she is iffy on doing that before/after the bladder scan.
In the mean time, Chris is spacing out watching TV, I suppose as long as he's resting quietly, he's healing, and that's good. But Mommy is just getting tired and snippy. I'm a woman of action, I want my boy fixed. I want to go home. I am perfectly capable of sitting in a bed, and watching movies all day from HOME!
Daddy had the right idea: run.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My friend....I have tears in my eyes reading about what you are going through. You are a much stronger mother than I and I know God has blessed Chris with the perfect mother! My prayers are with you. We love yah.

amypfan said...

Oh Cathy. If there is anything we can do, ANYTHING, we are now back from Illinois and would be glad to help you out. Feeding animals, more laundry, bringing you food, anything. You name it.