5-13-08

I did more crying last night because I was worried about Blake's breathing. His poor little lips and chin are so bruised from the tape they have to use for his cpap. Rob keeps telling me it is going to be a rollercoaster and I have to remember that, but it is still hard when you are looking at your 1 lb 12 oz baby in this clear box and he turns blue and yellow and waves his arms and legs in distress and there is nothing you can do to help. Or when his heart rate drops and you hold your breath to see if he is going to take in a breath. Today I started having bad abdominal pain like I did before feeling like heartburn. They kept me going on Malox and it wasn't really working so they were worried about my liver and ran my blood again. My blood came back ok and everything looked good. I guess I have had to take so much medicine so many times a day that my stomach was finally fed up and this time really did give me heartburn. The internal specialist came and saw me and decided that she was going to start me on an antacid once a day. That helped a lot and has been controlling it pretty well. I still have pain but nothing like I did this morning. They said it would take a little bit to start completely working in my system. The internal specialist also decided to up my Hydrochlorothiazide to 50mg because the 25 wasn't working and my bp was still up this morning. Well this evening they took my bp at 6 and 9:30 and both times it was in normal range. YEAH! It looks like we might have found a combination that works. I did get really dizzy right after the first dose this morning while I was in the middle of changing Blake's diaper and got so scared I started crying and had to hand everything off to the nurse. My nurse came and got me and brought me down to see the docotors. I could not stop crying because I was so scared and didn't know why I got so dizzy and hot. It looks like everything is starting to work itself out with these meds. They are going to do a running bp test in the morning. They test me laying down, to sitting up to standing and see if it fluctuates any. If everything looks good and stays ok i get to leave tomorrow. The only down side to taking the second med is because it diuretic it drains extra fluid from me which means it takes away from my milk I am trying to pump for Blake. I am so used to being here and able to go see him whenever I want, it is going to be hard now to actually get released and leave here. Plus I am scared I could bottom out at any time again. So we are going to be keeping a very close eye on my bp while at the Ronald McDonald House just to be sure and if starts to change we will know.
Blake did not get a bath last night because he was too unstable. He had a better morning and afternoon. The doctor did find an issue that they are watching very closely. They found blood in his poop so they did an xray of his tummy and it came back good and they did blood work to look for infection and it came back good too so they are doing another xray tonight and one in the morning just to follow up and make sure. It could have just been from an irritation but they want to make sure bc having blood in the stool is a big deal they said. His Zantac has seemed to help with the blood that comes up from his feeding tube. He had a few apneas today but none as bad as yesterday. The nurse had to help him out of it and it was really long but he finally came up. They took out his IV and he is strictly on breastmilk now. He is up to 15 cc's. He was doing good on his O2 levels in the afternoon and was holding around 27% but this evening had to be booted up a little into the 30's. He still pulls rollercoaster moves where his saturation goes up to 98 and then drops down to the 50 and 60's and then back up. So of course the nurse has to chase him with his O2. They do their best to try and let him level out on his own and not chase him but sometimes they have to because he is just so stubborn. Wonder where he got that from? lol When I started talking to him he opened his eyes and kept them open for the longest amount of time since he has been here. He did the whole open and close and open right back up and close....He opened really wide and just stared for a while till he got tired. Toward the end of my visit tonight he started having big drops in breathing and his saturation levels. I was trying to talk to him to pull him up and he started gasping through his tube like something was wrong. I made the comment that it sounded funny to me like he might have water in his tube and finally when his sats dropped in the 50's my mom said to her that I was hearing him gasp and I thought there might be some water getting down his esophagus. She started messing with the tubes and sure enough the little bottle that collects water filled up from the water rolling down from the tube she was tapping. Mommy's intuition was right. It was a new nurse to Blake that had never had him and of course when they are new to him I want to make sure they know his background and what he likes and doesn't like. I did get a little upset because normally his nurses are right on top of things and at times tonight's nurse was, but several times towards the end when he was dropping his sats into the 50's she had muted the alarm at 70 and it kept dropping and she was doing something on the computer and I freaked so I spoke up and said something. She then monitored him but for that few mins if I hadn't have said anything would she have caught it? This happened a couple times to where either me or my mom had to step up and say he is low satting at .#... It just makes me nervous sometimes. Each nurse is different. Don't get me wrong we have had the best ones we could ask for, it is just they all do their own thing and do it differently from everyone else. So of course you have your favorites that you would rather see him with consistently but that can not always happen. I called down a few mins ago to check on him and she got on to me for not being asleep yet like I was supposed to be. When I asked if he had-had any apneas she said he had one right after I left and she had to help him out a little by patting his bottom to get him to breathe. I trust that she is a good nurse and will watch over him. This hospital is such a top notch place that I can not ask to be any where better. The doctors are so great and knoweldgeable. They are on top of the babies and are willing to speak with the parents at any time. I know I am just being a hovering mommy because he is my baby and I want what is best for him. I try not to step on anyone's toes and upset the nurses by giving my input so I normally jsut keep my mouth shut and listen and watch. Now when I feel like I need to speak up, then I do. More than anything I do not want to piss off any of the nurses and staff because they are the ones I am relying on for the next 13 weeks. They have taken such good care of me and Blake these past two weeks and I want to make sure that I do not act like one of those horrible nagging moms that irritate them. I know they put up with a lot of different types of mothers and that is what they are there for. They ar NICU nurses and are going to be dealing with emotional mommy's, that is why I am trying my best to just watch and learn and not speak up too much. Ok I am finally going to try and go to bed. This blog ended up being a lot longer than I expected. Sorry I had to get everything out.