Don't worry, not another emotional spewage!

Today has been a better day. My dear friend Michelle who works here stopped by last night and I vented to her about my nurse/doctor frustrations. And being the dear friend and nurse that she is she gave me some good advice! (I also feel bad telling her I wasn't a fan of nurses right then, sorry Michelle!!!) I think also, I went home last night and was back to my regular schedule of going to bed at 8:30 and only having to wake up 3 times in the night helped me feel better today, even though I still feel like I need a nap.

So Michelle gave me the good advice of writing a note and taping it to Eli's bed explaining how I would like his cares clustered. She also said to make it clear during rounds what I wanted. She told me to ask what they are looking for for him to go home. So I made sure to be here before rounds today and did all of that.

So all of the doctors (which I must add is very disconcerting since they are ALL women who are like my age or a little older, and in the ICU they were mostly men with just a few women) listened with empathetic ears (literally) and agreed that we needed to be good about clustering his cares, and they realized that he needed to be treated like a premie and not a toddler, some times they forget that when they don't work with tiny babies very often, which they don't on this floor. They also were very encouraging about our discharge date, and they actually had some discharge and going home ready paper work for me today. But essentially they want to keep watching him a few more days to make sure he is gaining weight consistently. They also need to remove his sutures either tomorrow or Friday. They are also fortifying the breast milk with extra calories and they want to get up to 30 Kcal before he goes home (he's at 28 today and has been tolerating it well). So tomorrow he will be to 30 and then they will want to watch him 24-48 hours to see if he tolerates that OK. Then they will send him home on that. I haven't decided yet if I will stick with their regiment when I go home, but we will see. I do realize he needs to gain weight because he's so tiny and adding volume to his feeds at this point isn't a great idea (that can increase the risk for NEC), so we will see how I feel in the next few days. I also need to learn how to give him his lovenox injections in the next few days so I can do that 2 times a day when we get home.

So essentially all of this will occur in the next few days. They say the earliest we will get to go home will be Friday, but that's highly unlikely, and I don't know how readily they send people home over the weekend so I am anticipating Monday or Tuesday of next week, seems most realistic. It still seems like a long way off, but at least I have an end in site (hopefully nothing else sets us back).

I was also able to meet one of the cardiologists who works at the Bellevue Children's and she was awesome, so I will probably be making Eli's appointments on Wednesdays with her! I was glad to meet her and get to chat with her for awhile.

The other positive thing today is Hector came and did Eli's blood draw/labs today. I guess he is a miracle worker when it comes to blood draws and it is actually in Eli's chart that he's a "Hector Only" kid meaning Hector is the only one who can get his labs from now on! And today he started right away with a scalp draw, which is the only place on Eli's tiny body that he has veins that haven't be poked already. Which I tried to tell them yesterday but they didn't listen to me. It only took him 2 times (which is nothing compared to the last few days) and he was able to get an entire syringe! I am hoping it was enough for all of the labs he needed to have done (we kind of had a backlog of labs to do) so we won't have to do that again. And he was in and out of there in 10 minutes, and Eli was able to eat and have a good long rest! Plus I really liked him because he listened to me, where the other lab people looked at me like they were so much smarter than me, and he had me help, which maybe some moms (or most moms) would be freaked out by that. But I liked feeling like I was useful and he didn't look down on me for being there or wanting to be right in the thick of it (which I always do).

So we are onto the big push of going home! It's funny because I am sure it will sneak up on us. That is how it always works. You think you have a few days and then one day you walk in and they say make sure you have your car seat tomorrow because your getting discharged!!! At least that's what they did for Caleb. So today has been a better day and Eli has been getting some much needed rest, and hopefully the scales will reflect that in his weigh in today (He's on the Biggest Gainer!!) and he'll have been able to gain crazy amounts of weight today and didn't just burn all of his calories crying!

So keep the prayers coming that we will get through this big push and will be able to get home soon!!!!! We really really really appreciate all of you who have been reading our blog. We love to read your comments and see who has been following. We can see where in the world people have been viewing the blog and it's crazy all of the places that have been represented. And Ryan's favorite thing to tell me is whenever we hit a land mark number of views of the blog and we are overwhelmed by how many views it has gotten. We also love all of the prayers that have been coming our way. We could have never done this without those prayers and support!! Thank you so much to all of you.