5-14-08

I am getting released today YEAH! Well part of me says yeah and the other is scared to death. I do not want to relapse again and I am so used to being right here to where I can see Blake whenever I want. The mix of the new meds worked and my bp has normalized while on it and has actually gone a little lower than normal for me so the doctors pulled me back to 25 mg of the Hydrochlorothiazide instead of 50. The 50 helped but they think that now that it is ok, the 25 mg will keep it stable. They do not want it to continue dropping. That would be bad. Blake had a little bit of a hard night. He had to have a blood transfusion in the middle of the night because his platelets dropped. The doctors said that micropreemies aren't able to make red blood cells like regular babies so it takes them longer for their bodies to make up for losses. They also had to start back up his IV with some glucose because his sugar level was low. That could have been from them not doing feed due to the blood in his stool and performing multiple xrays where his tummy had to be empty. His doctor is going to start him back up on some of his other nutrients tomorrow. They do not want to shock his system. He also had a lot of d-sats last night and this morning with apnea spells. His nurse said that if he would have had a good night and morning then they were going to let me hold him. I was like...ahhh get better little boy...hurry up so I can hold you lol. When I went to see him today he high satted the entire time and opened his eyes when he heard my voice. Yea that means he is getting used to me and each time I visit I get to see his beautiful little eyes. Well almost each time. Some times he is zonked out and sleeps the entire time. Especially if I get there right after they have done his assessment or suctioning. That always wears him out. I will update later tonight if there are any changes.

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.

5-12-08 Evening

Ok so my doctor called in the Internal Specialist that was on call tonight. My doctor came and saw me again and sat down and talked to me and mom for a good while. He said that he wanted a second opinion regarding meds because of the fact that he is an ob gyn and usually treats women who's bp decreases with in several days. Since mine is not responding properly to the normal meds he wants someone that deals with internal meds to see me and decide if we should change something or not. The internal specialist came and saw me and talked to me about everything. He said that there were only a few meds we could try because of me pumping milk for Blake and the other one I was on makes my bp bottom out. So he looked up those few meds we could try. One came up as not ok to use with breastmilk and the other didn't have any info and were not in the safe category. That leaves us with what I am on. He said that I have only been on the new med since this afternoon and he wants to see what it does with in 24 hrs. If my bp is still elevated tomorrow he will bump it up from 25 mg to 50 mg (which means I will be here another night). If that does not work, we will reevaluate at that point. I am also maxed out on the first bp med at 800 mg (200 4x a day). My doctor also gave me a recommendation of a great ob gyn back in Houston for when I get home to go and see since I am going to be changing doctors. Not happy at all with the one I had.
Blake has been having a really hard day. We went to see him around 8:45 pm. When we got there I saw on the monitor where he had just had several little spells with his breathing. His nurse said that his sats dropped really low a couple times. So low that she had to remove the connection of the cpap and bag him with 100% oxygen. He low satted several times when we were in there and talked to him to try and get him to come back up. He heard my voice and started to open his eyes. I opened the door to the arm whole and put my face down in front of it so that he was able to see me and he just stared at me while I talked to him. He did the whole open and closing his eyes several times till he finally tired out and fell back asleep. He ws supposed to have a bath at 11:30 tonight but because of his sats they said he might not so we will find out in a little bit.

5-13-08...oops I mean 5-12-08

My doctor came back today. He had been off for the weekend and there has been another doctor on call here that has been taking care of me. So my doc came to see me a few minutes ago. He said he just didn't know what to do with me. He was trying to make me laugh and it worked. He said because I had such a severe case of the Preclampsia, my body is having a really hard time recovering. And because I am on the Labadelol 4x times a day and it is only putting me in the 140's/90's (with out the meds I would be back in the 180's/100's) he is going to try me on a new med alongside the Labadelol as well. The doctor this weekend did not want to add any new meds since he is not my attending and does not know me like my delivery doctor does. My attending dr that delivered Blake is so wonderful and pays attention to every little thing. He is not releasing me till they get my bp lower than what it is. He is very caring and knowledgeable about everything. He is trying so hard to get my bp under control. He does not want to put me back on the Procardia since that is what bottomed me out, so he is going to try me on Hydrochlorothiazide along with the Labadelol. He said he is going to keep me tonight to watch and make sure I do not react badly to it and if I normalize I can go home tomorrow. Oh yea and he wants us to rent a wheel chair once I get out so that I am not walking eveywhere. He does not want me to relapse and have to come back in once he releases me. He does want me to walk a little so that I do not create blood clots in my legs but only for a couple minutes around the room. Blake has done good this morning...no apneas since the new nurse came on, but she has had to chase him with his oxygen. She has to turn his O2 up and down because he is pulling a rollercoaster move going up and down. He did start to high sat when I was there so the nurse got to turn his O2 down a little which is a good thing. He seems to enjoy me being there which makes me feel better. He gets a bath tonight so I will update after.

Mother's Day night

So I went to see him this evening and take him milk. It was time for his assessment and suctioning from the respiratory therapist. She flipped him over and did his suctioning. They take off the attachment from his cpap and pull out his nose prongs. Then they put a few drops of saline down in each nostril to loosen up any mucus and stick a little suction tube in his nose and then far down his nostrils into his airway. They also do his mouth and throat. So of course his breathing goes down and he struggles for air but he did not have get bagged in the middle of the suctioning like he usually does. However he did turn blue towards the end of everything and it freaked me out so much I had to look away. They hooked back up his air and it took him a little while to come back up to normal oxygen sats. The nurses let me know when he was ok. When he was able to, he let us know he was not happy. I heard the biggest cry come out of him that I have heard yet. It was adorable. I put my finger in there while the therapist cleaned up his face and he grabbed on and was squeezing so much that his fingers started turning yellow from loss of blood flow. He started releasing and squeezing over and over. I made the comment that he was pumping iron. lol. After they finished cleaning his face up I got to change his diaper again. I finished and the nurse began doing her assessments on him. He then began to open his eyes. I started talking to him and he turned his head to where my mom and I were standing and stared at us. This was the first time my mom got to see his eyes so she was excited. I moved my head down to where the arm whole is on the side of the incubator and kept talking to him. He turned his head even more to the side so he was looking right at me and opened his eyes even more. When I stood up to talk to the nurse his eyes followed me, then I bent back down and he looked to where I was. At one point he moved his mouth up a little to where it looked like he was smiling and then relaxed his mouth again. I wasn't sure if I was seening things, so I asked my mom if she saw that and she said yes. I asked if he just smiled and she said it looked like he did. I was so happy it made my heart jump. He watched me until his eyes got tired and then he slowly closed them so he could rest. The nurse flipped him back over onto his tummy and he reached out so I put my finger in there and he grabbed on again and held really tight. Sorry this blog is long, I just got so excited that he was doing so much tonight that I wanted to get everything written down so I didn't forget. It really wore him out because once he fell asleep he was out like a light. The down side to the night, my bp is still elevated. We will see how it is later and what my doctor says in the morning. Have a good night. I am going try and go to bed...they give me Ambian to sleep...it helps out a lot since they wake me up so much at night to take my bp, the meds help me go right back to sleep when they get done.

5-12-08- Mother's Day

This is definitely not how I imagined spending Mother's Day, but at least I get to spend it with Blake. Robert left this afternoon to go home and they are still not releasing me. Maybe tommorrow. I have now had my third round of meds for the day and my bp is still holding around 145/102. Not horrible but not great. I keep getting bad headaches because of the high bp and they give me motrin for it but it usually only works for about half and hour and then comes back. The highlight of my day was when I got to change Blake's diaper and take his temp though. Wow did he leave me a nice Mother's Day present. Talk about a poopy diaper. Nice and messy! They went up on his feedings to 10 cc's. They put him on his back today and he lasted a whole hour with out horrible issues. He was not happy to be on his back and was letting the nurse know it. he kept throwing his arms and legs around every once in a while. He does really good when I come in to see him. His saturation level goes up so she gets to turn down his O2 a little. They tell me he likes me being there. I hope so. He did however have 5 apneas just this morning, but he has had his second round of Lasix so hopefully that will help out some with the fluids. Because of the Lasix he hasn't gained any new weight but the good thing is he hasn't really lost any either. He also let out a big burp when we were there. His burps come out through his feeding tube and it creates bubbles in the syringe. Normally they are just small bubbles, but this time the bubbles went all the way to the top of the syringe. It was pretty funny. He is also still having blood come up in his feeding tube from his tummy so they have started him on Zantac to see if that will help. We are hoping it is just from irritation because they have not found any huge bleeds when they do his ultrasounds. That is also good. The nurses have to keep a chin strap on him to keep his mouth closed so that the air from his cpap will not escape out. He fights it and constantly tries to open his mouth and stick his fingers in it. They have started putting a passifier in to help and he sucks on it like crazy. Way to cute. Then he gets tired and spits it out and returns his fingers. He is a fighter and is showing that every day. I am in for a world of trouble when we finally get home. lol

5-10-08 night

Well I found out that the nurse last night was in training and the charge nurse that was with her was actually Blake's nurse for the night so now I feel better. I forgot that it is a training hospital. So he got to have two nurses for the night. We went to see him and he was sleeping but he had the hiccups. Poor thing he couldn't stop. I took my meds and then went to see him so when we got back we waited about 1 1/2 hrs to check the labaladol to see if it had kicked in. And that is a negative. It was 156/109. So the doctors were called and the decision has been made to up my dosage starting tomorrow from two times a day to 200mg four times a day. This is going to be intersting. So sucky I am NOT going home tomorrow. They have to watch it and see if it works, otherwise they better start looking into a new medicine. My dad is flying back to Ohio in a few hours. He really doesn't want to go. He is so worried about all of us that he is stressing himself out and that is not good. Attention GCM lab group- please make him behave when he gets back there. Someone has to keep him chilled out and I know you ladies can do that. he thinks so highly of all of you.
Oh We found out that one of Blake's weekend night nurses that has taken care of him for the weekend he was born and the last two weekends, is leaving the hospital so she can be closer to home. We are very sad because she takes such good care of Blake. We will miss her so. For everyone who thinks I am not resting...I AM. I have not left this bed except to go to NICU and it is going to make me crazy but I am doing what they tell me so that I can get out of here and get better for Blake. My cousin gave me this huge lecture on following the rules the docs give me, which I have been doing, and resinting in bed, which i have been doing. They are even talking about renting me a wheel chair so i don't walk everywhere. LOL I don't think so, how silly would that be? I apologize for any mispellings and wrong words, I took an ambian they gave me and I am sorta in a daze ready to go night night. So I will update tomorrow with more.