01 Jul Brief Interruption
I know I promised to post again with the rest of the news about Keegan’s medical issues. I didn’t get to it last night, and since I don’t have the energy tonight, I just wanted to post an apology/excuse. Both kiddos have been having sleep issues. But here’s a little bit of what else has exhausted me the last few days:
- Gray had to go out of town for work. Most dads have to go out of town every now and then. Just a little harder when all the medical issues fall on one set of shoulders.
- Take both kids to the hospital around Audrey’s naptime for Keegan’s bloodwork.
- Horrible…horrible…horrible GI day for Keegan. Lots of diapers, lots of pain. No fun.
- Gray and I literally mix Keegan’s TPN every night, spike the bags, prime them, and hook him up ourselves. We do this usually around 10pm at night. As a team, we are well-oiled precision and knock it out very quickly. Much harder to do it yourself. With a pump alarming to a mystery occlusion. So I respike the bag, prime the air out, get almost done, and it happens again. Finally figure out after way too long that it’s a faulty Y-connect.
- When I go to hook Keegan up to his TPN, his port won’t work. Somehow, someway the needle had come dislodged. What? How? UGH! Call my parents at 11:30pm to come over to help me. Pluck him out of bed, reaccess (let me tell you my state of mind having to call my parents out of their bed and then waking up my child at midnight to stick him with a giant needle). Get it working, him back to sleep, and in bed myself just before 1am.
- Audrey is up at 1:30am. Can’t get her to get back to sleep until 3:30am.
- Keegan is awake at 4am. Get him back to sleep at 5am.
- Sleep for a paltry 2 hours. Yeah.
- Check the residual feeds in Keegan’s stomach through his g-tube in the morning. Get bright yellow-green fluid out. Seriously? That means bile was coming up from his intestines back into his stomach. (Science lesson: acid in your stomach is clear. Your pancreas is “below” your stomach and releases bile as food passes through into your intestine. This mix becomes a nice yellow/green color….theoretically.)
- GI says Keegan needs an abdominal xray to ensure there’s no obstruction. Get my mom to come sit with Audrey during her nap.
- No obstruction. Lots of air and diarrhea (surprise), but otherwise looks about normal for Keegan. No idea why the reflux but doesn’t happen again the rest of the day. He is acting the same other than that. We agree to wait and watch.
All that being said, I’m begging, begging my children to allow me to sleep just a little tonight! Please and thank you. The best part of the day was Keegan’s reward for being a trooper the last two days. Daddy got home this afternoon. Keegan has seen multiple TV commercials for Cars 2, and we hear about it every time he comes across anything Cars related in the house. He stayed in good spirits all day yesterday, including handling the middle-of-the-night reaccess well overall. During his xray, he stayed on the table, perfectly still, as instructed by the tech, without me even having to ask/bribe/console/etc. So, Daddy grabbed a mask and a bottle of Purell and took him to Target to pick out his very own Cars 2 figurine (well, 7 actually…yes, 7). He was a very happy camper.
Here’s hoping for a better night and a calm weekend. I will finish the medical update tomorrow! I promise!