VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: I’m a bit off my rocker tonight…
Where or where shall we begin. I’ve always been fond of starting with the bad stuff… I never like to leave on a bad note, so we’ll save the good stuff for last…
We started the day by visiting our daughter to find that nothing has changed. In her case no news is not good news. Her skin has broken down even more. Her stats are faultering even more than last night. She still has not urinated. Another doctor was on duty tonight. I asked for some perspective from him, and basically got the same thing: It would be a miracle if she pulled through this. I asked the doctor to try putting in a catheter to see if they could get her to urinate. It’s possible that she has so many drugs in her that she just “can’t” pee… The cath line was not successful. They could not tell if they put it in the right place and she started bleeding the moment they started fussing with her. We’ve stopped posting photos of Leilani because her condition is truly bad. There’s hardly a patch of skin on her that is not bloody or peeling. Here’s the problem: She has an infection. This causes her tissues to swell. The swelling in turn makes it hard for her to breathe because of the effects it has on her lungs. In preemies lung troubles cause problems with maintaining blood pressure. Low blood pressure causes the kidneys not to profuse. Kidney problems make it so she cannot urinate. This stops her from expelling the fluids building up from the infection and IV lines. And to boot, she is so swelled that her skin is breaking down from being so stretched. This makes her even more suseptable to infection… Yeah, she’s a happy camper… I can’t tell you how frustrating this viscious circle is…
We’re off to a beautiful start. Then we go visit Rhys to find he is still not pooping. Not a terrible thing at the moment, but we are concerned. They are also stopping his antibiotics today. I know it’s a good thing, because too much can hurt him in other ways… But, they stopped Leilani’s antibiotics, and the next day we find where we are today with her… We’re a bit nervous about it.
Then we discover that my car is having problems. Yay! Car problems! So, we have to take my car in and are left with one vehicle. Not a terrible thing by itself, but I’m subtly reminded of a proverb with a camel and a piece of straw… YIPPIE!
Then shift change found Leilani’s night nurse refusing to take care of our baby because she was overwhelmed with emotion crying and sobbing. This was one of the nurses that rubbed me the wrong way in one of my last entries. Turns out she does have a heart. A bit too much of a heart to work in a NICU. Though I can’t help feel comforted to know that my baby girl touched her so much. :) The effect of this is having a nurse that was playing catch up because she was not expecting to take care of my child. YEEE HAW!
Then in a moment of weakness I decided to give a call up to one of my old demons. Yes, I smoked. Back up! I’m on a fucking roll here!
Stay with me, we’re moving into the comic relief portion. We ran into an interesting little woman in the hall on the way to the cafeteria. Let me give you a play by play:
Interesting woman: Excuse me. Do you work here?
Me: No.
Interesting woman: This is so embarrasing…
What I am thinking: Oh lord, here we go…
Interesting woman: My daughter just had two babies here in the hospital. The nurses refuse to feed the babies and I don’t have any money.
What I’m thinking: Ok, your obviously high. The nurses aren’t going to refuse to feed babies…
Looney Lady: So, I’m trying to get enough change to buy them some bologna and bread.
What I’m thinking: Maybe if I kick her in the knees it would make a loud, satisfying snap!
Looney Lady: So, I was wondering if you could spare some change.
Me: No.
Then she walked away. After we got down the hall and I thought more about it. I wondered aloud, “What if that was a test from god to see if we are worthy of his help? Because if it was, we got a big fat F!”
Heidi assured me, “No honey, that was just a stupid toothless alcoholic.” :) I love my wife.
Panhandled in the fucking hospital. What kind of halfwit smacktard would do that!? Needless to say, that didn’t help my attitude. Bologna and bread!? What the fuck is that!? It wasn’t even clever…
After having a nice meal… Wait, no, it was prechewed cafeteria slop… Anyway, we return to the NICU and find that Rhys did poop after all! Yay! Way to go kiddo! The nurse said he “made a REALLY big poop!” Lo, it looked like it was quite an event. There was more stain than diaper. :) Poor keike. He desaturated right after it happened, so I imagine it was quite a traumatic experience. :) He’s fine now tho. :)
As we left for the night to get some sleep, Rhys was resting nicely. Leilani’s stats were as stable as they would likely get. I won’t sleep much tonight, because I fully expect to get “that call” tonight. Hopefully tomorrow we will behold a miracle and my baby girl will be on her way to recovery. Nobody around here is giving up.
I’ll leave you with a picture of Rhys
