Thursday, November 25, 2010

Home Sweet Home - Part 2

After living my present life, I'm not so sure amusement parks will ever have the same lure they once did.  I use to LOVE roller coasters, but that may be changing in the near future.

Last night, I left with my sister-in-law to run to the store while my mom stayed with Averi at the hospital.  When we returned, my mom informed me that she couldn't leave the room because Averi had just thrown up a few times.  We quickly made our way back to the room to find Averi making sure that no part of her dinner was left in her stomach.

She had been off of antibiotics for exactly 23.5 hours and her heart rate was very high.  The nurse, who was actually on top of things this time (I think Averi's file is starting to scare some common sense into people), immediately called the doctor and took blood cultures.  I was told the antibiotics must not have been strong enough to completely kill off the bacteria and she would be started on another stronger round...aka she wouldn't be going home in the morning, or any time soon.

By the time the doctor arrived, Averi was blowing raspberries and looking around as if nothing had happened.    They decided to hold off on the antibiotics since she wasn't showing all the signs of sepsis, and keep an eye on her during the night.  I jumped at every cough for the rest of the night, but it was apparently for no reason at all because Averi was completely fine.

This morning I fed her a really high calorie, low volume breakfast and she managed to keep everything down.  It was decided that she was healthy enough to still go home for Thanksgiving (with one more thing for me to worry about).
(Averi was given this hand-made sweater, hat, and booties when she was in the PICU.  Cute, huh?)

Right before lunch, the doctor showed up to take out Averi's PICC line.  After telling me that it would be used for a couple of months, it was explained that they don't like to send kiddos home with PICC lines.  They also really don't like the PICC sight, since it is very close to her diaper and the dressing has already had to be changed several times after explosive poo episodes.  Needless to say, it was taken out and then I really started stressing about her staying healthy since she no longer has an easy way to administer medicine.

After feeding her another meal, I wrapped my head around the fact that she was indeed coming home, finished packing up our stuff, and we headed out.  If we have to come back before Monday I may just call it quits - whatever that means.
(Someone try to tell me she doesn't look like a girly Boduh.)

1 comment:

Stephanie said...

She is beautiful as ever. Love that smile. Hang in there, Tiff. We are keeping you in our prayers.