To counteract last night's exhaustion, both Canon and I slept later than normal. We finally made it to OLS about 10:00. When we arrived, Canon's class was headed to the playroom. Already familiar with their routine, Canon squirmed in my arms to convince me to let him down to join his new friends. At least he didn't cry today. Oh, wait. Just after letting him down to join his classmates, he started running (he has this thing about being at the front of a group), he soon fell and cried pretty convincingly that he had hurt himself (which he hadn't). His teacher helped him up and reminded him not to run. So, he wiped his tears and started running again. What can you expect from a toddler?
When I arrived at the hospital, I walked into a dimly lit room and found my typically tummy-ridden baby laying peacefully on her back.
Our nurse wanted to wait for me to arrive to give Tera her morning bottle. At 8:30, however, Tera was alert and giving every sign of wanting to drink her breakfast herself. The nurse gave in and let her take the bottle, and I was so glad that she did. Of course, I want to feed her as often as I can, but I also want Tera to get good practice at the suck-swallow-breathe game that she's still learning. Whenever she gives signs of wanting to practice, she should practice. She took the whole bottle from the nurse this morning, and we made plans to try another bottle at her 2:30 meal time.
The doctors had already been around this morning and put in orders to quit giving Tera her Aminophylin. This is the medicine that helps with apnea and bradies. She had already taken today's dose in her 8:30 bottle before the orders were given, so technically it will be tomorrow before she is officially medicine free. This is the last medication (besides her vitamin) that Tera receives. The doctors also reduced the amount of fortifier (extra calories) that they add to her milk. She was on double HMF (which, I think, stands for Human Milk Fortifier - or something close to that) but she she will now only get a single dose in each feed. The goal is for her to drink pure breastmilk and still be able to gain weight by the time she goes home. I learned today that breastmilk has about 22 calories (per ounce, maybe?) just for your own personal information.
Tera gained two ounces last night, up to 4 pounds 6 ounces (1992 grams).
Now, for our Room Feature segment. First are Tera's Bravery Beads. UAB Kids and the March of Dimes sponsor this for the children who come into the NICU and CCN. I'm not positive, but I think Children's Hospital also has a program like this. Each baby receives a list that includes different procedures and events that could happen to them while at the hospital. The list includes scary things like surgery, transplants, and ambulance transports as well as less frightening things like music therapy, kangaroo holds, and extubation. Whenever a baby experiences one of these things, the nurse makes note of it and a UAB Kids representative brings beads for the parents to add to a keep-sake necklace. Here is Tera's necklace. She has gotten several bravery beads, almost all of them for those non-frightening things.
The second edition of Room Feature is also meant to show you how improved Tera's oxygen is these days. This is the monitor on her bed that measure Tera's oxygen needs, humidity, and temperature.
It's exciting that the bed is reading 23% because it means that hopefully she will be moving to a crib soon. What I've been noticing over the last couple of days, however, is that Tera really can breathe room air all by herself most of the time. I mentioned in a post a few days ago that I had been letting Tera bring herself back up when she de-sats instead of automatically offering her the blow-by. I'm continuing to do that, and I've noticed that not only is she de-satting less, but she's seems to be bringing herself back faster. Also, I can usually predict when she's going to de-sat. Often times, it's when she's stretching or repositioning herself, which you could also predict is when she's going #2. As soon as I see her lips purse and her face turn red, her hands reach up to the sky and her back arches, I can bet that 9 times out of 10, her oxygen saturation will drop. When it does, it comes right back up as soon as she's comfortable again. It makes me think that we all de-sat at least a dozen times a day. We just don't have monitors attached to our chest to keep track.
There are, of course, those one or two times a day when she is out of her bed that Tera de-sats for seemingly no reason. She's laying still and peaceful, when suddenly her saturation drops, and she doesn't recover on her own quite as quickly. The blow-by is brought to her nose, and she eventually recovers, usually high-satting for the next few minutes. This is why she is still on this tiny bit of extra oxygen. As well as she does 20 hours of the day, there are still those four hours throughout the day when her tummy is too full to let her lungs expand completely, or she is so deeply asleep that her brain forgets to tell her lungs to breathe. This will all come with age and growth. Until then, we'll just wait patiently.
At 2:30, we tried to give her a second bottle. The last time we gave her two during one shift, she did not do well at all, so I was not expecting much out of this one. As usual, Tera went against all of my expectations and did a great job. She took 14 of the 33cc and did not need the blow-by at all. She choked only once but recovered quickly and was eager to get back to her sucking. I'm wondering if the doctors might add another bottle per shift sometime soon.
I left earlier than usual to pick up Canon. I have been promising him since his first week here that we will play at Homewood Park after school one day. I decided that today would be that day. The swings and the slide are his favorite.
While at the swings, Canon watched another parent push his daughter in the swing next to him. "Up, please" (which means "I want to get out now"). I got him out of the swing, and he stood for a moment to study the parent's pushing technique. Then, he stood behind his own swing and pushed. As it swung back toward him, Canon turned around and ran several feet in the opposite direction. When he was sure that the swing wasn't going to knock him over, he ran back to it and held his hands out to catch it. Then, he pushed it again and turned and ran. I laughed at how silly he was for running yards further than he really needed to, and this soon became a new game for him. As soon as I got my camera out to take a video of it (it really was laugh-out-loud kind of funny), he gave up and found something else to do.
When we got back to Lydia's, we took a quick bath and got ready to meet Sam at Jim 'N Nick's for dinner. He's already so studious.
This next picture is just to show how absolutely intrigued Canon gets with movies. He becomes completely mesmerized and does not see or hear anything else in the room. If we're not careful, he's going to be a Couch Potato like his mom.
What About Barry
Every year staff and physicians from both hospitals in Dothan compete against each other in a basketball game to raise money for (if I remember correctly) United Way. I'll correct this if I'm not right. Barry, of course, always participates, both because he's part of the hospital staff and because he loves basketball. That event was held tonight, and Barry was in attendance. He told me tonight that his favorite part of this game is not actually playing but hanging out with the Flowers staff. In the games that I have attended in years past, his teammates usually get humorously frustrated with Barry for goofing off during the game and passing the ball a lot instead of shooting it. I'm sure tonight was no different. Afterward, he visited Ed and Leslie at their house. I had not thought of it before, but most of our friends we only see on the weekends because everyone's week is so tiresome. Since Barry has been driving to Birmingham every weekend, there are several of our friends that he has not seen any more than I have. He has been preparing them for my next trip to Dothan over Easter weekend. He's trying to plan our 2nd Annual Easter Lunch in Grove Park to celebrate.
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