It’s been a few days since I’ve had a chance to break free of my very busy schedule of sleeping, going for walks around the 4th floor and sitting in my bouncy chair, to update but now that it’s 11:11pm at night and I’m still not even remotely sleepy, I thought I’d take a moment to say hello.
I had been hoping that after 7 days of NPO (that’s right, 7 days without anything in my tummy) I would be able to tell you that the fluid had all cleared and the doctors were going to take out my last 2 chest tubes. Unfortunately, even though I’m obviously feeling much better (I smile for the mom’s all of the time) and the front of my chest sounds much better, the chest x-ray I had on Monday still shows a bunch of fluid that hasn’t drained yet. Everyone had been a little excited over the weekend because less and less stuff had been coming out of my drains and they thought that going NPO had worked, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. From what the mom’s understand, this now means that while they’ll start feeding me again, the have to move on to the next step in treating my Chylothorax, which is 5 days of a steroid treatment. I’m happy about getting to eat again(be
cause it’s really painful to not have anything in my tummy because it’s shrinking and the cramping makes me cry really hard – the mom’s definitely think that’s been the hardest part so far is watching me hurt so much), but I’m also really hoping that the steroids finally do the trick because otherwise the last step is a new surgery to go in and fix my broken vessel but it’s more risky and I don’t think I really want to do that.
Otherwise my weekend was kind of fun (besides the tummy pain, which lasts about an hour and then I fall asleep from crying or the morphine). My nurse, Vari, was the nicest one yet and the mom’s really really liked her. She helped the mom’s give me a bath (because I was getting to be known as the stinky kid on the floor!) and figured out how to sit in my bouncy chair AND even hook me all up to my stroller so that the mom’s (and my i.v. pole) can take me for walks. The nurses won’t let me leave the floor because of my chest tube (even though Mama C knows all about something called REDS – she says it’s a lifeguard thing) but there are two bridges and the elevators to watch, so it’s not really so bad. Mommy keeps joking about trying to pack me up and take me home when we go for these walks, so now
Vari and two other nurses, Cathy and Summer, keep a close eye to make sure that we’re not escaping. Luckily they seem to know that Mommy is kidding and they laugh a lot. Vari told the mom’s that everyone around here remembers me from when I was teeny tiny because of the fact that I was all by myself and everyone is so so happy that I found my family. Vari said that when I was first here, she took care of me a lot and even spent some of her extra time coming to sit with me so that I could know that I wasn’t alone. A lot of the nurses tell the mom’s that they really like our family and during the day lots of them pop in and say hello to me and just make sure that I’m still as adorable as always. Even some of the doctors come by just to say hello. This hospital isn’t my favourite place to be, but it’s still pretty nice to be adored.