No Excuses

But one after another, they all began to make excuses . . ." Luke 14:18 I know this is not uplifting in the least, but it is the best illustration of my night.

Day of Life: 26

If you told me when I woke up this morning that I would feel like this tonight, I would not have believed you. So, we'll start with the happy part of the day first.

Because Barry and I had had absolutely no time to ourselves this weekend, Lydia took Canon to church with her so that Barry could take me to breakfast, then to the hospital to visit Tera. We ate at the Ranch House before Barry dropped me off at the hospital while he went to the gym. Within an hour of my arrival, we had Tera out and in my arms. We had our normal (wonderful) time together. I read to Tera about "Praying for Self-Control, Diligence, and Self-Discipline." In its most basic nutshell, this chapter encourages parents to pray for their children to make good decisions. There is a tough-love twist to it, however, as the women mentioned in this chapter also prayed that, when their children made poor decisions, that they would be caught in the act. One son, for example, kept coming home with extra knick-knacks in his backpack. When his mother called the teacher to inquire about it, she told the mother that she suspected the boy had been stealing classroom supplies, but she had not seen him do it so it made it difficult for her to discipline. During her prayer group, this mother asked her friends to pray that her son would be caught and be able to admit to his lying and thievery. Pretty tough for a mother to do, I imagine. The boy was soon caught and was genuinely sorry for his crimes. Of course, every prayer is not answered so completely. Berndt explains that often, after prayers are lifted up, we must simply wait on God to do His work in our children's lives. Philippians 1:6 says "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion . . . " I'm thinking this is easier said than done, but still worth working on. My prayer for my children tonight: "Thank you for disciplining Canon and Tera, and for preparing them to share in your holiness. Use this discipline - however painful - to train them and produce a harvest of righteousness and peace in their lives." Hebrews 12:10-11.

Barry arrived shortly after, and I made him take a couple of pictures of me with Tera. He still refuses to touch or hold her, but he has started talking to her a little bit now, so I know there's hope for someday.

Eventually, Barry and I returned to Lydia's where Barry packed the car once again for he and Canon to head home. We let Canon sleep for about 30 minutes before waking him up to stuff him back into his carseat. He's very into movies these days - usually The Bee Movie, Toy Story, or Thomas the Train. Apparently today, he couldn't decide which he wanted to watch most, so we spent several extra minutes asking and reasking before finally just sticking something into the DVD player. After only the smallest argument, Canon gave in to my decision (whatever it was) and settled into his seat for the long ride home. Later in the day, Brandy (my dear friend and neighbor) took this picture for me.

My boys made it home safely and with some daylight to spare.

And then my fun began. I returned to the hospital alone about 5:30 this evening. Nonna and Poppa arrived shortly after to visit, followed closely by Lydia and Christian. About 7:40, Tera started to de-sat. Her oxygen hung around in the 70s for several seconds, then began to drop lower and lower. I can usually bring her back up simply by putting my hands on her and rousing her up a bit. This time, it wasn't working. As soon as I saw the nurse coming my way, I asked if I could turn on the oxygen blow-by to give her a little extra help. She said "of course," so I turned it on and got her levels back to normal. When all was settled, the nurse said that she was leaving for the night and that we would have a night nurse that I had never met before. I had originally planned to leave by this time to get some dinner, but I felt like I should stay for just a few minutes more to meet her.

In that few minutes, Tera de-satted again with similar results as before. When I felt like I had waited more than long enough, the night nurse came toward the door, so I reached up quickly to turn on the blow-by once again to help Tera get her oxygen saturation back up. Again she settled down and all was good, though I was a little shaken at how long it took anyone to get to the room. The nurse explained to us that she had left her glasses at home and would be going to the nearest drug store to purchase some new ones. The Charge Nurse would be watching her babies while she was gone.

She was gone less than ten minutes when again, Tera de-satted. I waited as long as I could - Tera's oxygen saturation got down into the 30s - before turning on the blow-by with no permission at all and helping her to come back to normal sats. This time, Poppa timed the length of her de-sat. One minute and fifteen seconds. Her monitors beeped for over a minute and not the first person came in to check on her. The nurses wear this iPod looking thing, called a Vocera, around their necks. Whenever Tera's monitor dings or beeps, the Vocera gives her nurse a sign - either by beeping or by giving her a verbal message - that something is happening in Tera's room that the nurse should check out. Tera's monitors can also be seen from the nurse's desk or from the dozens of TV screens mounted throughout the hallways. So, you can imagine my surprise when absolutely no one showed up to check on her. The Charge Nurse, who should have been "dinged" when Tera de-satted, came around soon and began getting her things prepared for Tera's regular nightly check-ups. She made no mention of her previous de-sat, so I brought it up. She was surprised to hear of it because she had received no message through her Vocera. Apparently, Tera must have de-satted at the exact moment that they were swapping her over from Tera's nurse to the Charge Nurse. What a coincidence!

The Charge Nurse continued with her exam, weighing Tera (who is up to 1220 grams, an almost 80 gram gain since last night - WOW!), taking her temperature, and watching her breaths. She talked with us for quite some time until Tera's nurse returned. Eventually, both nurses left the room and Nonna, Poppa, and I made plans to leave. We actually had our bags on our shoulders ready to walk out the door when Tera's fourth dramatic de-sat of the night occurred. Her oxygen saturation dropped, I waited as long as my nerves could handle then turned on the blow-by, Tera came back up, and not one single person came into the room. Poppa timed this one at a minute and a half. I stepped out into the hall - empty. After a couple of minutes, our nurse walked by heading somewhere else, so I flagged her down to tell her what had happened. Her Vocera had not been signaled of Tera's distress. She called the Charge Nurse who said that her computer showed that Tera was assigned to the correct nurse's Vocera so she should have been signaled. The Charge Nurse reset everything to see if it would work "this time." Now all we had to do was wait for Tera to de-sat again to make sure that her monitors would notify our nurse's Vocera that she was not breathing! Yeah, I won't be leaving anytime soon.

I should mention here that not only did our nurse's Vocera not go off, but she was also closed up in another baby's room and so could not hear the loud beeping and dinging of Tera's monitors down the hall. This particular family had a 10-month old baby in the room, and they like to keep the door closed so he won't escape (he obviously is not the patient). That's all fine until his confinement prevents my child from getting the necessary amount of oxygen. Another mistake made was the fact that Tera's monitors should be registering on every babies' monitors that Tera's nurse works on tonight. This way, when she is taking care of one baby, she can see what her other babies' monitors are doing at all times. Because that baby had a different day nurse than Tera, their monitors had not yet been synced for their now shared night nurse. All of these mistakes are earning me a CCN nursing degree tonight. I'm not impressed.

Once our nurse was in the room, Poppa made it known more than once that, yet again, Tera's saturation was very low for over a minute and that, had Deborah not been there, no one would have taken care of it. What is most disheartening is that so far, all we have heard are reasons why these things are happening with no apologies or commitments to ensuring that they don't happen again. While both Tera's nurse and the Charge Nurse seem highly capable, I'm a little disturbed that neither seem the least bit bothered by the fact that twice now, Tera's oxygen has dropped into the Danger Zone, and the only people aware of it were sitting right next to her. Why are they not more worried about this?

After another hour or so, after Tera had de-satted yet again and her nurse's Vocera was notified, Tera quickly seemed to get better. Her oxygen saturation actually got too high, and the nurse was able to drop the oxygen level in her isolette from 40% to 38%. We finally felt comfortable leaving for the night. Of course, once I got back to Lydia's house, I immediately felt horrible for having left Tera . . . nervous that she might be neglected again and I would not be there to make it better. The non-confrontational side of me fought hard, but I decided to call the Charge Nurse, just to let her know how upset I was and that I really didn't want anything like this to happen again. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know that I got my point across in a very nice, but serious tone. She apologized but continued to explain all of it away as "glitches in the computers." I was trying hard to hold back tears (I tend to cry when I get nervous or angry - I was both at this point) but eventually let a few slip at the end of our conversation. I think I at least earned some sympathy points from her.

I took these pictures earlier in the night, before all the drama began. They sum up how both Tera and I are feeling tonight - wanting to cry and hide but worried no one will find us if we do.

I know there will be fear and anxiety when we finally make it home with no monitors or nurses, but I have never been more ready to take my child home and take care of her myself. Just ten short weeks left, I hope.