Saturday, May 10, 2014

One Week Old!

It's hard to believe Kiahna is a week old today.  In some ways, it seems like it can't possibly have been a week.  In other ways, it's hard to believe that all that has happened has taken place in only one week.



On Wednesday when we were visiting with Kiahna's doctor, she said that our discharge date would be sometime between Monday and Wednesday of next week.  Up until that time, we were under the impression that we would for sure be going home by Monday.  But she said we would discuss it as the time got closer.  Well, Thursday morning she informed me that she really would like to keep Kiahna until Wednesday to do a couple more days of antibiotics.  She said that even though the chest x-ray revealed pneumonia, Kiahna hadn't acted like a typical pneumonia-baby.  She said that pneumonia-babies usually get weaker and weaker until they just can't breathe.  Kiahna just flat out stopped breathing.  She said that all the weird stuff that happened makes her concerned that some of the infection may have gone to Kiahna's brain.  But because of Kiahna's low 02 levels, no spinal tap had been done to find out for sure.  So the doctor just wanted to be cautious and treat her with the full round of antibiotics for meningitis. 

We've come to the conclusion that Dr. Arnold breaks news to us in stages.  She will kind of hint at something one day and then confirm it the next.  It makes us laugh.  At any rate, we are just glad Kiahna has such a competent and cautious doctor.

So, I have four more nights here. I'm two-thirds of the way done.

Yesterday morning right after I got out of the shower, a nurse came to inform me that I had to move rooms.  Since I'd been living in that room for a week, I had A LOT of stuff in there.  I felt like I was being sent to live in the dungeon.  I'm in a ward all by myself, outside of the maternity ward.  The room has no recliner, no fridge, no tub.  Dealing with that move after a night of little sleep due to Kiahna's monitors that kept going off until I finally sent her to the nursery at 12:40 and then getting up to nurse (and pump) did not suit me well at all.  I was in tears when the doctor came in to visit with me.  She assured me that it was perfectly normal to be feeling overwhelmed at this point. 

I quickly adjusted to the new room (which is actually perfectly fine).  So far I've only twice set off the alarms that set lights to flashing and supposedly lock down the hospital.  This ward is farther than Kiahna can go when her security tag is activated. 

This morning, Kiahna got to come off of her 02 sat monitor.  That was the most annoying machine she was hooked to.  It would alarm any time Kiahna's sats went below 90%.  When she goes into a deep sleep, her sats drop to the high 80s, which really isn't a big deal.  The big deal is when I'm sleeping and the alarm keeps waking me up.  Last night I did keep her with me the whole night.  It was only the second night of her life that she's spent with me, and I really wanted her in here.  But whenever the alarm would go off, I would have to kind of move Kiahna around so that she would come out of that deep sleep and the alarm would shut off.  REALLY annoying.  Then the nurses had to come chart her sats occasionally, too.  So with the alarms, the nurses, and getting up to nurse, this mama didn't get a lot of sleep.  I'm thankful that machine will not be around to wake me up tonight.

I've been asked if the days get long.  Most of the time, that's not a big complaint.  I find stuff to do, and I love that I have so much time to sit and snuggle Kiahna.  The worst part of this whole thing is the times when everyone else leaves at the end of the day after coming to visit us.  I hate sending my two older girls home without me every night.  I haven't tucked them in for eight nights.  I know they are in perfectly wonderful hands, but they need their mommy home.  Kyla has melt-downs over every little issue.  Then she asks how many more days they have to come to the hospital.  And I hate staying here without all of them.  But Kiahna is getting the medicine she needs to be able to come home completely healthy.  That's the important thing.  As my dad said the other day, at times like this, there is only one thing to do:  do what's next!

What's next today is that soon Bryan, Kyla, and Kamryn will be here to join me for the evening.  I'm going to enjoy the time I do get to spend with them today.  And I'm going to cuddle Kiahna and be thankful for her renewed health.



Not many more days now!

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