Keeping us in suspense!

Well, a lot has happened since my last blog. Monday night I went in to get kind of a "crash course" in G-tube feeding. They showed me how to hook up the feeding tube, put in his medications and clean the G-tube site. The cleaning of the site was definitely the most aggressive part of the whole process and therefore the scariest part but it wasn't too bad and it only needs to be done once a day usually. They went over how to recognize symptoms of a problem with the G-tube (skin warm around the site, excessive redness, strange color leakage, excessive leakage, etc.) It was a lot of information to take in but most of it was pretty much common sense. All the nurses seem to really like Kyle and who wouldn't? He's turned into a pudgy little charmer (I've started calling him "Prince Charming of NICU"). He has dimpled little knees and elbows and smiles at anyone who says hi to him.




Tuesday morning Chris and I went in to All Children's for training on how to use the home monitor and feeding pump equipment for when we go home. The representative from Pediatric Health Choice demonstrated how to set up, use and maintain the home monitor system and the feeding pump. They're both very easy-to-use machines and very user-friendly. Our digital camera is more complex than these machines. After the training, Chris and I got some lunch before getting trained on G-tube care. For me, it was just a refresher from the night before and Chris always retains information well so we were confident after the training that we were ready to do the G-tube care ourselves.

The staff scheduled use of the "Mom's Rooming In Room" for me that night and Chris and I headed home to get things in order before that night. On the way home, we were able to pick up the Kia from my uncle's shop (the timing belt had snapped back on New Year's Eve and my uncle had been repairing it).

Later that night, I went to the NICU quite excited because this was one of the final steps in getting our boy home. They brought his crib into the rooming in room and we started to hook him up to the home monitor. We had some challenges with the home monitor because it apparently wasn't compatible with their remote system but they finally said that it ws loud enough that they could hear it from the other room anyway so it was okay. That's for sure. It's louder than a fire alarm! A little while later, the monitor started going off. The lights said that Kyle had an apneatic episode (breaths slower than 20/minute) but he was breathing fine. It went off several more times and we didn't figure out for quite a while that the leads (the pads that go on his chest) were just too close together.

A little while later, the security guard came to get me because someone had reported that our Kia had the door wide open. I panicked a little because I had left the laptop in the back and I felt certain that I had locked the door. When I got to the car, it was fine and the laptop was still in there so I guess the car door must have popped back open after I walked away. I haven't quite gotten the hang of the locks on this car. It's got one of those locks where you have to lift the handle while you close the door, or it comes unlocked. I like my Civics locks because you have to lock them with the key from the outside or it won't lock. It's a great safeguard against locking your keys in the car!

Anyway, the night with Kyle went great. He slept most of the night. I didn't get as much sleep as he did because I was so excited.


Unfortunately, the next morning the nurse practitioner brought bad news. Just when we were about to get the go-ahead to take Kyle home, they found out that he was scheduled for surgery to repair his hernia for January 17th! The nurse practitioner said that she would try to work something else out so we wouldn't have to bring him back for surgery just a week after discharge. Well, she worked it out so that his surgery was today instead. In some ways, that's good because they prefer to do the procedure before discharge and they were able to do his circumsician at the same time. But it means that the expected discharge date has been pushed back to Monday. Even then, it's not a definite. It all depends on how well he recovers from this surgery and gets back on feedings. We'll just take what we can get.

At least the apartment's ready for him to come home. This morning before I headed out for the hospital, Hannah was rocking the cradle and saying "I'm rocking my baby brother" and "Kyle coming home?". She is so excited that he'll be coming home. I wonder if she'll still like the idea after he comes home.

I'll post new pictures as soon as I get a chance... for now, I'm using the All Children's Family Waiting Room computer while I wait for Kyle to come out of recovery.