Basekamp Laundry Mountain

Reliance

Today my son spent hours off oxygen when he should have been on it. A nurse forgot. The nurse switched him from a portable tank back to the recently filled liquid tank and forgot to turn on the Liter flow.

I watched him have a higher than normal respiratory rate. I watched him play lying down. I watched him develop black circles under his eyes during dinner- yet I never second-guessed the nurse’s competence in following doctor’s orders.

I made the assumption that the nurse had turned the oxygen ON when his tubing was attached to the tank. I looked for reason’s beyond what would have been my first instinct had I been home alone and been responsible for providing him oxygen. Such a competent nurse made a simple mistake. And tonight my son pays. He struggles to maintain sats above the ordered minimum & requires oxygen to supplement his fatigued ability to breathe strongly enough. Again my son pays for the mistakes of others.

And I live the guilt.

the Evolution of Saturday Morning

My oldest child is 18. I remember Saturday morning with him: a time of lounging together, sleeping in, Saturday morning cartoons… It was the morning we ate at the diner, got out to the park, met friends for hiking excursions…

Now Saturday “morning” typically begins as a continuation of Friday evening. Getting to bed before Tavish completes his first “barrel roll performance” is impractical. I typically stay awake and occupy myself with the computer or TV or laundry until just about 1a.m. before settling in to my first nap of the night. Overnight “morning” continues as I am startled awake by an oximeter alarm, or a breath that sounds off, or the crashing of knees into the metal siderails of the medical cribs. On & off, I steal sleep in 2-3 hour increments until true Saturday morning begins.

Gone are the Saturday morning snuggles, the invasion of my bed by young children to gently awaken me. Today’s Saturday mornings begin with a startle to awake and realizing that the morning neb treatments must begin or the feeding schedule will be so off we will miss an essential 200-300 calories for the day. Typically I shut off oximeters and then the mist compressors. Together the twins and I stretch our arms to the side, close our eyes, and mark the “moment of silence” before the mechanical deluge begins anew with nebulizer compressors running the first of 2 morning nebs. As the first neb runs, I get Keva from her room or the nearby cushion on the nights she “rooms in” in our “ward”. She gets to the bathroom as I try to make my coffee so I can complete all the rest of the morning tasks which keep my kids breathing well-enough to enjoy some of the day.

It has been quite an evolution from the morning of rest, of “refresh”, to the morning of “assess, neb, toilet, meds, nutrition, assess, repeat”.  The most difficult part of the transition? There no longer IS a “refresh”…

A Quiet Week

This week is a “quiet week” – 4 days no nursing & only 2 doctor appointments, 1 for each twin. O sure, the doctor appts we are going to are genetics (results) and an ECHO with cardiology follow-up, but it’s only 2 trips in- and one of them I will have a nurse.

Maybe its just that the next 46 hours are covered with nursing. Maybe it’s that place of denial where a parent needs to live to get through the stress of waiting for testing to see if your 5 year old is suffering from pulmonary hypertension… Maybe. But this is my quiet week.