Day 123 - Another Head IV

May 02, 2021

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Morning: James had a fairly uneventful night, which is good! He greeted his primary with a Brady and destat, but she knows how to quickly help him recover. After a few diaper changes, bump in his PEEP to 14, cool towel on the head, clothes off, and put into the Boppy ... James is now calm and relaxed.

Afternoon: After a calm morning, Dad read James two books. “The Rainbow Fish” (a gift from Dalila) and “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” (A gift from the Biggs family). Then Dad held James for 75 minutes. They were about to bond and talk things through, specifically around playtime and fun when they get home.
And then ... The doctor came in and mentions that James is doing really well. He’s right where he’s supposed to be. His vaccines and shots will be pushed back a few days due to the UTI antibiotics. When Dad mentioned that we are approximately 4 weeks away from going home, the doctor quickly stated something along the lines of I never said that or that’s not accurate. 🤔 Seems like there’s some miscommunication somewhere. She said that “most of the time babies put on the trach will go home 4-8 weeks afterwards. With James it might be another 6-8 weeks. It could be 4 weeks, but I cannot say for sure.” (Paraphrased). Dad was not going to go with his thoughts which were “But you said ... 😔”. Instead, Dad went with, “We will just see what happens. Either way, Mom and Dad will be ready to take him home when he’s ready to leave here.”
As James was getting ready to get his feed, his Primary noticed that due to the excess sweat on his head, the tape wasn’t sticking for the IV on his head. Unfortunately, this means that they had to redo the IV again for his UTI antibiotics. 🤦‍♂️ 🤦‍♀️.
The RN who specializes in IVs came to the “rescue” but she was unsuccessful with getting the IV into his foot. So, she tried his head again, and hit an artery instead. So they had to remove that when blood came back in the tube when attempting to flush it. (That was her two attempts). The Charge nurse is the next person to attempt. She goes straight for the head and .. that didn’t take either. Strike 3. But unlike baseball, there’s 4 attempts, 2 for each RN. Dad asked if there’s another way to give the antibiotics instead of an IV. (Which there is) but it’s not ideal for infants to give this orally. If the infection is in the blood stream, the antibiotics will be most effective in the bloodstream too. Fourth and final attempt... here we go! And, it worked. Now James has a VERY taped down IV in his head so that he cannot sweat this one off in the next 24 hours. Our Primary thinks we will still need to replace it again due to the cycle for the antibiotics being 7-10 days - we are on day 2.

We moved the bed around a bit so when James goes on his Boppy, he can look outside the window.
Dad has been practicing with the Trach Doll. He named him “Timmy”. Dad is getting ready for the new role today of holding the trach during the tie changes. Dad also took some time today to create a step by step checklist to ensure that the process is simple and procedural, and communicated effectively.