The Bad is that yesterday morning I couldn't get blood return when I administered Olivia's morning meds from her port. I was able to infuse the medicine easily so I didn't give it a second thought, figured it was because she'd been sleeping on her stomach all night and thought the professionals at clinic would have no problem. Turns out there was a problem. They couldn't get any blood from her port. They tried countless times. Then they removed the needle and we thought we'd start all over. I put the numbing cream on Olivia so she wouldn't feel the needle. It takes about half an hour for it to work so our waiting began. They tried again, new needle but no luck. Then they tried to put "TPA" in her port. It's a fast acting blood thinner that they put into her port. The idea is that it will help to unclog any clots that may have formed over the opening from the port catheter into her vein. They have to leave this in for an hour and allow it to work before drawing blood. The waiting continued but still no blood. We tried again, waited again, still no blood. Finally around 3:30 they did a finger poke to get the minuscule amount of blood that they needed for Olivia's labs and we continued to wait. They would typically do a dye study to determine how Olivia's port is working but they don't usually do those on weekends. The nurses in clinic contacted the attending up on 5200, his suggestion was to administer some more "TPA" and leave it for 4 hours then return to the hospital to see if it would work. After waiting all day in the clinic (we got there at 10:30 and it was 5pm by this time) that was not okay with us. I suggested that they give Olivia her iv steroids there in clinic and then take the needle out, give everyone a chance to rest over the night and then try again fresh on Sunday. Everyone agreed with this plan and Olivia was able to take a real bath last night.
The ugly is that my dear, sweet, son now turns into a possessed daemon child at night. A couple of weeks ago he was down to getting one bottle a day, right before bed, he rarely finished it. He would go down promptly and sleep through the night. Everyone has different styles of parenting and I haven't been Peter's primary care giver for a couple of weeks now. Peter has gotten accustomed to falling asleep with his bottle, waking up and polishing it off a couple of hours later. And having several more bottles throughout the night whenever he woke up and decided he was bored, must be nice buddy but that's not going to happen any more. I think Peter is in for some rude awakenings this week. Last night Peter woke up around 10:45 to finish off his bottle that I didn't even know was in the crib. I heard him sucking on the empty bottle and I knew we were in for it. My dear sweet son has a bit of a temper and he was pissed! I was less than pleased and can't stand to hear the kids cry. He proceeded to chunk the bottle out of the crib and then scream for the next 2 hours. He refused to be soothed and I refused to give him a bottle. He eats plenty throughout the day, he's wasn't hungry, he was mad and wanted his bottle. Mike has nerves of steel and can handle it (he could have written the stupid Ferber method) but I am less composed. I laid awake the entire time Peter was awake and whenever Mike started to fall asleep I would kick him so he'd wake up and then begin complaining about how Peter has been a little spoiled. I'm telling you it was ugly.
Fortunately Peter slept well after his nocturnal activities and woke up happy at 7 am. I am hoping that Olivia's port works today and they are able to draw blood easily!
1 comment:
Oh my!
I'm sure that had to be a hard transition to get Peter back after being away for so long. But props to you for sticking to your guns!
I know exactly what those kind of nights are like!
Cute pics of Olivia!
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