Happy Birthday To Me!

What's better than spending your birthday in the hospital with your child whose had a major surgery? When you get zero sleep, start the day with lots of medical visitors (nurses, doctors, surgeon's, nurse practioners, respiratory therapists, social workers, & nutrionist) and miss breakfast, get no coffee (yes this is the most disturbing part if you know ME)!  THEN.....The catheter that empties the bladder kinks and there is urine leakage into the diaper, you then realize you'd better to line the cast with moleskin NOW or risk paying the price with your nose for the next 6 weeks. During repositioning for the job her IV stops working. And the afternoon is then spent trying 6 unsuccessful attempts to restart an IV with 3 different people so said child can keep her epidural to relieve pain from this major surgery. All the while this stream of activity means missing lunch and catching up on sleep.  Agggghhh! Shower? Forget-about-it. I'm feeling every one of my 42 years, plus some!

Yes, this is how the day has gone so-far. (Although I finally did get my morning coffee at about 4:00 and that has helped a lot.) We think Ainsley is a little underhydrated. We're giving her a fluid bolus as we speak and are planning to try one last time to get an IV going in the foot (where we discovered she can't quite feel it thanks to the epidural) so that they can continue to use the epidural. She got a dose of oxycodone and they ordered an oral version to the Torodol since her IV meds can't be given right now. She wouldn't even lift her arms to lift the flaps of the new zoo lift-a-flap book, but it did provide a good shield during IV pokes. At 5:00 she started to dose off intermittently. But she is still pretty fussy. Imagine asleep but still crying. She is not too happy. Clearly I was way wrong about how things were going to go. She was so comfortable yesterday, but we haven't gotten back to that state. Now she's stirring. Her bolus stopped and it's time to try again to get that IV so I've gotta run.