Saturday Night 1/27 (+ some random extra stuff)

Prayer Requests:
A great echocardiogram in the morning
Excellent sleep for everyone tonight
Continued strength and improvement for Gideon
Healing, rest & peace for mama

Gideon had a great day today after last night and this mornings debacles. He had a blood transfusion, added some extra medication and got his nasal cannula back at 4L on room air humidified. After a couple days of asking and being denied, I finally convinced someone to do a saline flush of his nose to open his airway and what a HUGE relief that was when they did it and cleared him out! He had some nasty, crusty gunk in there that had blocked off most of his airway which I believe led to many of his problems last night/this morning. But that’s been dealt with now and he is breathing easy, easier actually than ever before with the positive pressure from the cannula. Statistically speaking, he has had his best day with his heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate and NIRS readings, sadly, it required extra medication and positive pressure air to get him to that place. He has been a very good boy today though and been chill and rested and got some lines changed and some things cleaned up, I got to lotion him up pretty good as well and dumped a bunch of frankincense in the lotion for added benefits for him and all the nurses want the frankincense because it smells so good so everyone likes to smell him now. We get lots of nurse visitors because everyone thinks he is so cute they just like to look at him and talk to him, I think he is the smallest baby in the unit being only 5 lbs, most small babies like him are in the NICU not the CICU so he gets doted on pretty well here.

My friend asked me the other day if I’ve got much scrapbooking done while I’ve been here. Ha. Get something done? Seriously? Well, I suppose to anyone who doesn’t know what goes on here, it would seem like all I have is endless time to do whatever I want to do. That is not the case at all though. This picture below is how I spend the majority of my time here. 1 hand on his bink, the other hand on his head. That is about all I can do to calm, comfort and soothe him  so when he is awake, this is where I post. I talk to him, sing to him, play music on my phone and just hang out and be with him. When they do procedures, vitals, checks, etc, this is where I am to comfort and soothe him. So I spend the majority of my day and my night just like this, hand on head, hand on bink talking to my man. When I’m not doing that, I’m either pumping milk or cleaning the milk pump supplies because I should be pumping at least 6 times per day which means washing it all 6 times per day as well or making him milk. I do that by feeding myself :) lol. I do try to get a small, healthy snack for breakfast, usually a salad for lunch and I’ll order something from the kitchen for dinner. The other night I ordered a burrito bowl and at all the meat and salsa and tossed the rice. It was delicious. Tonight, my mother in law brought me a big salad I ate for lunch and saved leftovers for dinner and just ate the goulash she brought me for dinner, the other night my mom brought up a bowl of soup for me for dinner so I had that. I don’t frequent the cafeteria but I do order from the kitchen which is their room service menu, I just have to go pick it up downstairs from the pick up window as we’re in intensive care and there is no food allowed in here, I have to get it and eat it in the family lounge.

This book right here that was given to me by a dear friend has literally kept me alive during my stay here. I get so terrified at night when the alarms all go off and they page for the doctors and people fill the room discussing what to do with him that I can barely even breathe. I lay in my bed still and quiet holding my breath trying to make out what they are all saying just on the other side of the curtain completely and totally paralyzed and terrified in fear. Then I remember my good book, crack open 1 eye and read any words I can off of any page in this book in the dark to re-ground myself and focus on the truth rather than the paralyzing fear and I often read this out loud to Gideon as well while I’m standing over him. Someday, maybe I’ll memorize some of this stuff so I don’t have to read through 1 half open eye in the dark in the middle of the night… lol. For now, I do what I gotta do to make it through the scary times.

Chillin with my man

They actually do procedures and operations in these ICU rooms (hence the no food/drink allowed rule) and made me mask up today to sit on my bed in the room during a sterile procedure they did changing his dressing on his arterial line. I’m a nerd, I know.
   

Hospital life is different than normal life, that’s for sure! When I originally packed my hospital bag, I packed plenty of things for Gideon to wear and his blanket to have in the car seat on the way home, socks and mittens, cute outfits, etc and I packed clothing for myself expecting to be a patient admitted into the hospital with him as I was scheduled to be on hemorrhage watch for 3-4 days while he was on cardiac watch so we could stay together in the hospital. I had NOT planned on being an outpatient and was not prepared for that ambulance transport the night he was born up to childrens and becoming an outpatient just 7 short hours after giving birth to him. When I got the chance to go home and re-pack a day or 2 later, I took out all of Gideons stuff (he didn’t get clothes or blankets at the time – he still doesn’t get any clothes) and packed myself stuff to live as an outpatient visitor at the hospital. I’ve since had a chance to go back home 1 more time and re-do it all again since I’ve learned more after being here for more time now. They have shower facilities, 2 to chose from, 1 set doesn’t  have warm water, the other set has scalding, burning hot water so I’ve learned which showers to use. I had packed my whole Young Living travel set that I bought specifically to have at the hospital after birth which I took back home and dropped off because I needed to minimize a lot of stuff. I’ve been using the foaming pump shampoo/soap on the shower wall since I got back because I took my own toilitries home except my deodorant and toothbrush.  Today I found a bar of soap  in the family resource center and did a little dance for REAL SOAP! Yes, I had the option of having my own real soap from home but I got rid of all non-essentials and since soap was provided in the shower, I left mine at home but I generally never use body wash, I prefer a bar of soap so this was quite the little blessing to find today. I had an awesome scalding hot shower with a real bar of soap this evening, it was FANTASTIC! I even did a load of laudry yesterday to wash the sweatshirt I’ve  been living in 24/7 which was nice as well! 
I started to write this post nearly 2 hours ago now and while it should have taken me 20 minutes, I’m still not done. The nurses had shift change so there was check in with his new nurse for the night as well as check out for his day nurse who is gone now. His night nurse wants to give him a bath and a spa treatment which is great, he desperately needs one. They let me lotion him today but I only got about 40% of him and he still has crusty stuff on him, his night nurse is very excited about the fresh, clean blankets she found for him and some yummy smelling shampoo so I’ll go dump more frankincense in it and help her give him a bath and spa for the next hour or 2. So much for going to bed early tonight! But if he has a nurse who wants to take good care of him, I’m all for it and will stay up all night long making him feel better!

It’s now been over 4 hours since I started this post… I had hoped to be in bed over 2 hours ago.. time FLIES at the hospital!

This is us about 30 min ago….