Saturday, March 17, 2012

Another day in the life =)

I have apparently scared off our nurse we were supposed to have for four nights in a row. She mysteriously got reassigned after last night's "loud advocating" for our son (some might call it me being an annoying mother). Whatever. She was terrible and did almost everything wrong. But today is a new day and we were given a dayshift nurse straight out of Heaven! She was wonderful!

Jensen is still struggling with morphine withdrawal. He is now on Tylenol and that seems to help, but he is still very irritable and sometimes inconsolable. He was so clingy last night I barely got to lay down at all, let alone sleep. I actually fell asleep standing up! Jensen's oxygen is still up and down, going between 0.5 and 1 liter. Like the morphine, I think it will take longer for him to wean off the last little bit.

He had his swallow study yesterday and did very well. He was very awake and they got to try every position, bottle, and liquid thickness they had. He ended up needing the thickest liquid (its the consistency of a milkshake) to prevent aspiration. The speech pathologist will start working with him on Monday. They will be adding a thickener to the breast milk and using a special high flow nipple. He definitely has the ambition to eat, just has trouble with swallowing. I hope he does well with this combination.

I've had some people ask about our schedule, so this is what we are doing now: Jeremy and I basically stay with him for 12 hour shifts. Jeremy is staying overnight tonight and I will relieve him in the morning at shift change so he can go to the hotel and sleep for a few hours. He will come back just after lunch and we will spend a few hours together until dayshift ends and then I will do the overnight shift. Rinse. Repeat. Its definitely exhausting, but better to have only one sleep deprived parent than two =)

And now for your daily dose of Jensen cuteness: 
Chuck up the deuces 
Whoop! Whoop! Happy St. Patty's Day!

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