If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

If Mama ain't happy, Dr. Troup finds out about it. And as we learned yesterday afternoon and all day today, if Dr. Troup ain't happy, everyone and their brother bends over backwards until he is. Maybe it's just coincidence that things took a turn for the better after I talked to him, maybe not...

The day didn't start out great. From the moment I walked back to see Emma at 11:00 until we left for lunch at 12:45, I was bombarded by a nurse a couple times, a physical therapist, a March of Dimes volunteer, a social worker, a NICU doctor, and 3 residents. The best part of that whole time was when I decided to temporarily tune out a couple of them to just look at Emma and let her hold my finger. Today's nurse told me that I would feed Emma at noon, and my mom jumped in and told her I would NOT be feeding her, as I was going to rest this afternoon. Then the nurse said, "Oh, so you'll feed her later then? You haven't fed her yet, have you?" I responded, "We've been feeding her for 4 days." I'm not sure why these NICU 2 nurses ARE NOT GETTING IT - they suddenly think we're clueless. Anyway, my mom took me home to rest, and she went back to the hospital. Russell picked me up at 5, and my mom had a wonderful afternoon with Emma.

Judy had a very long conversation with today's nurse, and they got to be great friends. If you've ever met my mom, you know she can be very persuasive and convincing, especially to strangers. All I know is, she and the nurse really bonded, and when I got there at 5:30, Emma had been moved to a private room that is only reserved for babies and their families who are being discharged in a day or two. These are called Family Learning Centers, and they're for parents to stay in with their babies before they go home to make sure they know how to care for their children. It has a bathroom, table and chairs, couch that folds into a bed, microwave, fridge, and flat screen tv. Oh, and a baby. :) There's still a chance that Emma could be moved back to a semi-private room if another family needs the room that we're in now, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Another nurse came in to whom we are distantly related, and the two nurses and my mom had a good ole time together playing with Emma and getting a few footprints and a VERY difficult handprint from her. I can only imagine how hard that handprint was to get, as I felt those little fists balled up tight in my ribs for a couple months. It even turns out that Emma's nurse is a friend of a friend of mine (I don't know who), and she's been praying for Emma for a few months now! God's a sneaky guy who's just full of surprises, isn't he?

When Dr. Troup came, he asked the nurse why we had been moved to the private room that is set aside for families who are leaving. She replied that she didn't think it was right for our family to be stuck in the crappy room when the other one was available. (Ok, so she didn't say crappy, but it was.) He agreed and asked, rhetorically, why it wasn't done sooner. He didn't seem happy that it took this long for someone to get us in there, but he was very appreciative of this particular nurse's attentiveness.

I blogged yesterday that Emma is making her hips and legs all crooked. Well this morning she had fixed her problems herself (with the help of her physical therapy fort, of course), in less than 24 hours! The OT and PT were pleased with her quick progress and gave us a couple other little things to work on. I learned how to wrap her ankles with the tiniest gauze strips you've ever seen. We were concerned that she wasn't moving her right leg very much, and today she moved it almost as much as her left. Dr. Troup was pleased with her incision. Now for the bad news - her head felt a good bit harder and tighter than it did yesterday, meaning that the fluid has increased. There's now a chance that she will have to have a shunt before we take her home. This could mean an overall increase in our hospital stay of a day or 2, or, if she has to have the shunt this weekend, it may be no change at all. Either way, Dr. Troup really wanted her to go home first and come back for the shunt. Still a possibility, but we have to wait and see. One of the indicators of too much fluid is when it affects Emma's feedings. Unfortunately, she has gotten onto a binge cycle: she eats every 3 hours and eats like a horse at one feeding, very little at the next, then chows big time again, etc., etc. The night shift nurse is going to try to get her on a more stable schedule and quantity tonight so that she doesn't binge, even if she COULD eat more. The doctors need to be able to tell if those small portions she's eating are due to the spinal fluid build-up or due to being too full from a previous, large feeding. Too much fluid will also start to affect her breathing and heart rate. Scary, huh? Finally, there were 2 or 3 people trying to correct Emma's diaper rash today. It seemed like there were lots of people scrambling today to set everything right - from diaper rash to a private room!

I am still experiencing a good bit of pain, and I had to get a refill on my medication. Not resting is a part of that, I know, but it is what it is.

Today's picture reminds me of The Seven Dwarfs. Reach back into your childhood and picture the dwarfs' hats. They flopped over at the top, where the point was. That's what Emma's hat looks like in this picture! If one of the dwarfs was named Chubby, this is what he would have looked like. Look at those cheeks and that chin.