Today started out as "just another 'Mac Cheese' Monday". (Go ahead, Weird Al. She's all yours!) By that I mean that mornings have just been rough lately. Timmy is more needy in the morning - medication, feeding, changing clothes and diapers... And the older kids have more mess-making energy, want breakfast, want juice, want to watch Super Why, need help going to the potty... It never ceases to amaze me when I'm up with the first child at 6:30 and then I go to look at the clock and it's almost 11!
James had a meeting this morning at 10:30 so I squeaked a shower in before he left in the hopes that I could have us all ready to go to the pediatrician's on time by myself, should his meeting run long.
At 11, it was quite obvious that macaroni and cheese would be the most ambitious thing I could make for lunch. Praise whoever came up with the stuff! Not the most healthy, but put some grapes on the side and you're good!
I tried to put the kids down around noon (I had worked all morning trying to get Timmy down for a 9am nap. Did not happen.) and the phone rang. This one I definitely wanted to take. It was our friend, Val Vickers, calling to save me. She works with Dr. Brown, one of Timmy's pulmonologists, and was our instructor on monitor usage and trach emergencies. She's just awesome. She asked how things were going and I was completely honest. I have been going crazy with the oxygen. I take the pulse oximeter maybe a bit lighter than I should but Timmy has been satting in the 90s all night long ever since he got the thing, regardless of whether or not the mask is actually on his trach. However, once I pick him up to feed him or just move him to change his diaper, his sats drop dramatically. Not sure how accurate that is. He also satted in the 90s yesterday when I moved him to make Trevy's cake. He was in his room and I left the trach collar and tubing in there while I brought him out with the pulse ox. I sat him in the swing and had to help Trevy before I could get the trach collar and his sats never dropped. Val and I both think this means that Timmy is pretty well over the virus so we are just going to keep Timmy on the moisture and oxygen mix when he's asleep or when it's fairly convenient. Dragging the tubing around the house is about to do me in. The sticky bands for the pulse ox are no longer very sticky so we'll just do random spot checks off and on, rather than leave the pulse ox dangling and have it constantly beeping.
This phone call was just in time to give me piece of mind before we headed out to see Dr. Peterson. We all went. Not crazy, just that all the kids were getting flu shots. James got home around 12:45 so he was able to help me. We made it a bit early even. The nurse who called us back, Karen, wasn't even working with Dr. Peterson today but she didn't have anything to do when we got there and she has worked with our kids before so she went ahead and took us back. She's so sweet.
Trevy was due for her 4-year check-up. She is now a whopping 32 pounds and 39.5 inches tall. (Dr. Peterson told us that her growth trends indicate that she'll end up being about 5'4", 115 pounds. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.) Landon was standing on the scale so I moved the weights and he's about 29 pounds. Wish we could have gotten Callie on there too...
Eyes and ears both passed with flying colors. And then we went to the exam room. Soooo cute! The kids all serenaded Karen with "Do As I'm Doing" and "The Wheels on the Bus". Timmy just slept through the whole thing.
Trevy passed the drawing test as well - she was able to draw a circle (of sorts) and intersecting lines. Her vertical leap leaves a little to be desired, but that's just because she takes after her mom. I think mine is about 3 inches. Seriously. James loves to laugh at me for that one.
Since Trevy was already set to receive three injections for immunizations, we thought she should just go ahead and have the flu shot as well. The twins we would just let have the nasal spray. We were told that it bothers some kids so we didn't want Trevy to have to endure both. Wish we would have given them all the nasal spray now. The twins weren't bothered in the slightest. In fact, they both cooperated right well. Trevy, on the other hand, ended up screaming by the time the fourth needle was removed, poor thing. Glad that's over.
Dr. Peterson asked if we had any questions for any of them. She told me that Timmy's last bilirubin numbers came back amazing, like almost normal amazing. She even had the nurse grab the chart so she could give me the actual numbers - 1.3 for direct and 3.0 total. (Again, we're aiming for less than 1 on the direct bili.) I asked about Timmy's blood draw - do we really need to do it? If the only reason for it is bilirubin-related, do we really need to put him through that? She didn't see any need from her standpoint, but Timmy sees Dr. Ammoury (gastroenterologist) tomorrow so we'll double check with her. I so hope not!
As always, plenty more posts, just not enough time or energy. Always fearful of getting to the point of complete exhaustion where I won't wake up to Timmy. I get to return to the NICU for a visit tomorrow night with Timmy. I'm going to be on a parent panel to help give the nurses feedback. Looking forward to seeing friends we haven't seen for a while. Just glad I don't have to leave Timmy there anymore!
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