No Sleep

On Monday night, Jeff took the evening shift at the hospital. Sue was Henry's evening nurse. Henry had woken up, but wasn't feeding well. It took Jeff hours to get a minimal amount of milk down Henry. This was important because if Henry hadn't been taking it, the medical staff would have had to reinsert an IV for fluids. I called Jeff at 3:45AM to see if he wanted me to come down and relieve him. But in the end, Jeff came home as Henry was sleeping by this point. After Jeff left, Sue weighed Henry at 2155 grams--a 50 gram loss.

Angela and Melanie were Henry's day nurses on Tuesday. Melanie recently graduated and was being trained by Angela. They said the sutures looked good.

At 1PM, the home medical equipment people arrived right as I was about to feed Henry who was very hungry. Angela turned on the bright overhead lights, which Henry hates. The equipment folks needed some light. They showed me the equipment (oxygen tank and apnea/brady monitor) while Melanie tried to feed Henry. Henry took 45 mls, but Melanie described it as a poor feeding. Henry was overstimulated.

The apnea/brady monitor is set to go off if Henry's heart rate dips below 70 or if he doesn't breath for 20 seconds. The oxygen should be easy enough to figure out.

After the equipment people left, Henry wouldn't settle down. His pulsocs alarm kept going off (it wasn't reading correctly). Angela tried changing the pulsocs cords, but nothing would get it to work. So, she ended up turning it off and said to let them know if he turned blue. I eventually tried to breast feed him (did about 25 minutes over an hour). He still wouldn't settle down. Tried changing his diaper. He threw up while I was changing him. Then, he let out a foot long geiser of urine, which got everything wet. And, I couldn't find his nurses to help me change out his blankets. Plus, the pulsocs was still off and he was looking really mottled. Luckily, Karin came along to help me, and she got the pulsocs unit to work.

My mom came to relieve me in the late afternoon. She had a hard time settling him down too.

Sue was back on the evening shift. Henry weighed 2160 grams...not exactly a great weight gain.

Jeff finished giving Henry the bottle he had started with Sue. Henry slept about a 1/2 hour. By this time, it was about 9PM. Henry wouldn't settle down. He looked overstimulated. He was fussy, sounded at times like he was hurting. We tried changing his diaper and putting him to bed. Nothing worked. Tried nursing him for a while (about 35 minutes over an hour). He kept rooting but pushing food away. Lots of throw up. Tried another two rounds of bottle feeding. Sue put him back in bed around 1AM. He still wouldn't settle down. She got him a mobile (unfortunately, it was the one I hate with a passion...designed to create ADD in kids by playing different nursery rhymes for 15 seconds then switching). That didn't work. He let out some screeches. Sue talked to the nurse practitioner who just said to wrap him in warm blankets and talk to her later (great...excellent...don't even bother to check the screeching kid out).

He finally slept for a while around 3AM. We left around 4AM, but it looked like he was going to stir again.

All in all, a pretty miserable night.