Wa Wa Wa All The Way Home

At least this "little" piggy wasn't screaming her brains out -- I can live with some sobs and cries now (it's all relative, eh?!). It was a long drive home, but we were thankful to make it. However, discharging her at 4:00pm on the Friday of Labor Day Weekend guaranteed a maximum of traffic. I would have liked to have jumped on the LifeFlight helicopter for a ride home. But, we made it, and that's all that matters now.

We were hoping to get home today, and we did. But it was a bit dicey there towards early afternoon. They had started at 04:45am trying to get blood for a set of labs, and by 12:00pm they were still coming up dry. At this point, all of Jordan's care was based on her blood chemistry, and despite even a PICC line, the could NOT get blood. Nurses, charge nurses, IV team nurses, nurses from other departments, and they even seriously considered calling in the LifeFlight team to give it a try. The PICC was plugged and useless, and after more than 10 other venus pokes (and no blood), they decide to milk her heel and call it good (not the most representative way to get blood, especially K, which they were worried about). Anyway, based on the results of the heel stick, the docs decided we could go home! Yippee. Her treatment: blood draws & blood pressure checks every other day, and 1/4 teaspoon salt per day, spread out through 4 feedings per day. The salt thing does not surprise me at ALL. Her sodium has been stable at 132-ish for a couple days now, which is what mine is naturally, and all she's drinking is breastmilk from me. Yes, I'm below the bell curve in that department (low normal is 135), but I have been for years (based on my yearly physicals for work). "You are what you eat" -- right. Since I don't have high blood pressure at all, docs just tell me year after year to eat more salt! And I do, as many of you know -- I'm a total saltaholic.

Anyway, a little worse for wear, and bruised all over her body from all the needles (including her head, not to mention all over her arms, legs, hands, and feet), we are home. She's doing much better in general, and tonight we are starting our new sleep regiment. If it doesn't work in a week the docs will consider meds, but for now we're going to try to keep her off of as many drugs as possible. And we're going to let her cry it out a bit more, so that Devon and I can get a little more sleep, too. We don't really have a routine in place yet since we're just trying to get back on our feet, but the first good sign is that she fell asleep around 11:45pm, and I was able to lay her in the playpen bassinette without her waking up at about 12:30am (we're taking turns in the living room so at least one of us can sleep for awhile). It's been 1 hour now, so I need to do my part and get some sleep, in case she wakes up soon. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for pictures, since I'm going to make* myself sleep now instead of fiddling with them (as I "normally" would at this time of night).

*Unlike Devon, I do not suffer from pillow-induced narcolepsy -- but boy do I wish I did!! At least we all sleep like the dead once we get there! Even Jordan.

Wish us luck, or at least some zzzzzzzzzz's.