The title just about sums it all up. I am freaking exhausted. Phoenix has been moved from the NICU at DUKE to the PEDS floor, into his own room. This is good news, it means he no longer requires the constant watch and supervision of the nurses in the NICU. It also means, if we do not stay up there with him, he will be in the room all by himself.
This is where the tiredness falls into play.
His days and nights are still switched. He is also still attached to several monitors and a stomach drain. We can pick him up, however, the most we can really do is just sit on the bed with him. We cannot move around at all.
His stomach closure is looking good, and it even looks like he will have a /somewhat/ normal belly button. The doctors and nurses have been able to hear bowel sounds, but unfortunately, nothing has passed yet. Once he passes a bowel movement (poop for the lay person) then they will start the slow process of weaning him onto food.
Although he has never had food, I still believe he is hungry. He is being fed through an IV, but I bet he still has hunger pains. He probably just doesn’t associate them with food yet.
I imagine that once they start the feeding process two things will happen. One: Phoenix will be very happy to get food. Two: Phoenix will be very pissed off at the tiny amounts of food he will be given while his body adjusts to working properly.
It was actually a pretty frustrating experience being moved from the NICU to the regular floor. Our nurses in the NICU were familiar with Phoenix and what his plan of treatment was. Moving to the floor meant re-educating a whole new group of people.
I am actually still a bit pissed over what happened the first night on the floor. Phoenix still has a tube into his stomach that constantly sucks out the content. It is constantly flowing, and with the occasional exception of when the bottom of the tube rests up against the stomach wall, bubbles can usually be seen in the tube, indicating, at least, a flow of air. There have also been times it has just become a bit clogged. The NICU nurses easily fix this by injecting a bit of water down the tube. This usually
clears the clog and allows for the tube to continue to suck the green contents from his stomach.
I told our nurse on the floor that the tube wasn’t moving anything. She came by stuck her ear to an overflow valve on the tube and told me to listen. “If you can hear a small whistle, then you know it’s working”, she said. That’s fine and dandy, and somewhat true. BUT… If the tube in his stomach is clogged you will still hear air flowing through that valve as it is pulled in FROM THE OUTSIDE rather than his stomach. She basically just told us it was working and looked at me as if I was some uneducated asshole.
Now, granted, I have not had the education that she has, but I have been watching my son for the past two weeks. I watch what the nurses do. I watch how they do what they do! I may not know /why/ they do a certain thing, but I can damn sure tell you /how/ it is done.
So the next morning Jenene phones me (I stayed at the house the first night). She then tells me that when the nurses were weighing him in the morning, they had apparently jostled his tube around a bit (they weigh him nekkid). When the tube was moved around in his stomach, whatever was blocking it became unblocked and it started pumping out a TON of the green goo!
Needless to say, I was furious. I so wanted to give the nurse a piece of my mind, but steered pretty clear of us the next night. I am sure she knew I was pissed. Hell she could already tell that the first night. Ha!
Other than her our nurses have been pretty receptive and good. I have fun messing with them, and so long as I’m happy… everyone should be.
Well, Phoenix has finally fallen asleep — Hello kid, this is when you wake up — I’m going to try and get a couple hours sleep.
