Hospital Day 4 - Saturday

Every day is getting better and better for Kaitlyn. We were finally moved out of the PICU and into a regular hospital room at 11:30pm last night. A little late but we were happy to move. Managing Kaitlyn's pain has been a challenge. The medicine she is on can only be taken every 4 hours and around hour 3, it starts to wear off and she is NOT happy. We are trying to add Motrin in addition to her strong pain killer to see if it will avoid the break through pain. It is still difficult to pick Kaitlyn up without feeling like we are hurting her. When she lays flat in the bed she rolls side to side which is a good sign that it doesn't seem to hurt too much. Today, Kaitlyn had her first feeding through the G-tube. It was only a partial feeding to test how her body would handle it and then we bottle fed her until she was full. She did great! It didn't seem to bother her at all. It actually had the opposite effect the first time we tried it. We fed her 2 oz of Pediasure through the tube and she fell asleep! Tonight though, we are doing a drip feed, which is where a machine regulates how much food is given over a set amount of time. The drip feed she is on is for 1oz of Pediasure to be gradually fed through the G-tube every hour for 8 hours. This should also help her sleep longer or at least that is the hope, since she wouldn't wake up hungry. The nice thing about the G-tube too is that the nurse comes in to give Kaitlyn her medicine and is able to put it into the tube and not even wake Kaitlyn up! So nice since when Kaitlyn sleeps, we can sleep. We spoke with the surgeon today and he thinks that if Kaitlyn continues to do well, we might be able to go home Monday or Tuesday but of course it all depends on how she does. Chip and I are very tired and the day seems to go by so quickly since there is so much to do to take care of Kaitlyn and make sure she is comfortable. We do a lot of distracting with balloons and toys when she starts to get some pain. Other than managing her pain, we are learning a lot about how to use the G-tube. It seems fairly easy but it is still a lot to learn and adjust to.

We've had some visitors come see us, which has been really nice. Sometimes in the hospital you are so focused on your situation that you forget what day it is or what else is going on outside of the hospital. We even got to see Cole today, which was much needed, especially for me. It is hard to believe that he will be 7 weeks old tomorrow! I can't wait for Kaitlyn and Cole to be back together again at home. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

 

Hanging out with Cole in the car since we didn't want him to be brought into the hospital with all the nasty germs there.

 

Sweet smile before he went back home with Gigi (Deanna's Mom).