Day 798 - Hospital Stay Part 2: Getting Discharged ☣️🏥📋
Wednesday, March 8th, 2023
Today was supposed to be the day we were going to come to the hospital for the overnight sleep evaluation before the decannulation. Instead we are already here. Yesterday, the ER said they were going to contact our ENT and Pulmonologist to let them know James was admitted so that our procedure could be cancelled. Guess what? Mom received a call from hospital registration today for details on checking in. So not only did ENT not communicate back to the hospital that we were in the hospital they were also calling us on the wrong day. We were supposed to arrive at the hospital TODAY not tomorrow. They had different information, saying we were only coming in Thursday, not the night prior on Wednesday. So it would have been a mess anyhow! 🤦🏻♀️
James slept pretty good overnight and only woke up once, which is when we suctioned his nose. Mom only needed to get up 4 times during the night to suction his trach. The nurse was pretty good about being quiet and handling his feedings every 4 hours. Since the hospital carries every feed except the kind James takes they had to water down a 1.2 calorie option and redo the math on his feedings. They stopped the IV fluids once James was back to his full feeding schedule. James was given Zofran via IV because of the non-stop gagging and vomiting. It's interesting that they give Zofran for nausea when in fact the reason he is throwing up is because of post nasal drip.
James had a rough morning, he was worse than yesterday. Non-stop throwing up, but his heart rate was better. Imagine so much thick post nasal drip that when you try to take a breath you can't and feel like you're drowning. 😢 This is what James was dealing with. This is why we couldn't put his cap back on. Mom had another RT who didn't have a clue about how to safely administer nebulizer treatments off the vent. She started off very rude and then lightened up talking about how much she hates her job as a travel RT, how she is given too many patients, and she didn't care if she didn't get to them all. Everyone was pretty vocal about how much they didn't like working there. Our nurse barely came in the room (maybe because putting on PPE is annoying 🤷🏻♀️). But she was either sending in someone to do her work or she was asking Mom to do it while she sat at the desk. Nice girl just not getting a daisy award. 😂
👨⚕️🫁 Mom overheard familiar voices outside of the room. It was the charge nurse talking to our Pulmonologist. It's funny when people have their masks off, you don't recognize them. They ended up coming up to the door. ☣️ Since everyone required PPE they had to keep their distance. Mom had a million questions for the pulmonologist. First of all he said, "my face melted when I heard James was in here right now". There was a lot of back and forth between Mom and the doctor regarding this next big step of airway evaluation and decannulation; between emails, voicemails, and phone calls it was sad that now everything would be cancelled because of RSV. He also said he couldn't believe James got it because it wasn't hitting as bad this flu season. The doctor answered Mom's main concern which was about sleeping with a cap. He said we should not be sleeping with a cap at night and seemed frustrated that ENT is not on the same page. He said it would be 4-6 weeks before ENT will even entertain another appt after RSV.
👩🏻⚕️👩⚕️👩🏼⚕️🧑🏾⚕️ A few different people popped in the room in the morning giving Mom the impression that we would be discharged soon but rounds took forever. It wasn't until 12pm when the charge nurse stopped by to ask what the plan was. Mom said, "I think we are getting discharged?". The nurse asked if we talked to the doctor and Mom let her know that they actually never stopped by for rounds. They seemed to have skipped our room. So shortly after the doctor came in and asked Mom what her thoughts were. We were all on the same page. There was nothing they were doing in the hospital that we couldn't do at home. They told us we would stay until 3pm for observation and then be discharged. So Dad picked up Mom and James around 3pm. James was discharged on the HME and on about 1 liter of oxygen. We were told to come back to the ER if his retractions got worse and he needed more than 3 liters of oxygen. Because it is a viral infection there was no medication prescribed, just CPT every 8 hours.
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