The training begins.

Last night I met one of the nurses who also works with discharge in a conference room to go over things. Crazy that I was so close to my sweet boy but couldn't go in to see him. I probably shouldn't have even been in the hospital being how sick I was, but I felt that we needed to get going with the training. I was super careful about sanitizing my hands and using my elbows or feet to touch most things ;-) We had planned to do infant CPR with Lona, Mike and myself. I got there early to begin to go over all that we need to prep for Ian's homecoming.

First off, she told me the list of equipment she had ordered for us: oxygen tanks, pulse oximeter & nebulizer. There would be physical therapy (PT) 2x a week for 4 months and occupational therapy (OT) 2x a week for 6 months. The big surprise was that we'd have nursing care to help us out. We had no idea that would be available to us but what a relief. To have someone around that knows when to be worried about something he's doing or a way he looks will be extremely helpful to our piece of mind, especially at the beginning.

Then she gave me his schedule. Feeding every 3 hours, which I knew. Hopefully I'll be able to nurse most of those but he'll still need medications starting at 6 am then 9 am, noon, 3 pm, 6 pm, 9 pm and again at midnight. These will all be given via his G-tube. The list of meds is 11 long. I'll have to work out how I deal with feeding when I'm nursing him. At the beginning I'll weigh him before I nurse and then after to see how much he took in. Once I figure that out, I'll be able to gauge how much extra I'll need to give him via his tube. They are also fortifying his milk so I guess I'll have to do that with the extra. We have to get the hang of feeding him via the PEG tube. It's a syringe that connects to the G-tube and you hold until it empties into it.

This is all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing this week. The plan was to be at the hospital every day all day so I could give him his meds, feed him and do all the things I'll have to do at home. They are really clear that they don't want to send him home until I'm completely comfortable taking care of him. Of course my getting sick messed that plan up! I'm feeling much better this evening. Hopefully I'll feel well enough (and not contagious) to go in to begin it all tomorrow. Sad thing is that I was supposed to be taking Lila to Disneyland for her birthday. Now her Daddy will take her. I'll either spend the whole day at the hospital if I'm feeling better, or if I'm not, I'll stay home and rest. Either way, a full day of walking around Disneyland is not in the plan for me.

For now when he comes home is all dependent on when I can get my bootie back in there. I went to acupuncture today to see if she couldn't help me get over this quicker. She gave me a bunch of really horrible tasting herbs to drink as well. As if the ones for increasing my milk supply weren't bad enough, these are much worse! I've got to just suck it up and drink them. I'm taking so many supplements I feel like a walking pharmacy! If I can get him home by this weekend and have milk when he gets here, it will all be worth it.

The nurse today said the doctor planned to push it to Monday now. That's a major bummer! The original plan was to have him home Friday. Lila could be here for his homecoming and my sister and her husband are coming down this weekend so they'd be around to help play with her while I focused on Ian. On Monday, my sis flys back and she's taking Lila with her. My parents offered to have her up for the week in order to give us time to get into the swing of things with Ian at home. It was going to be perfect. Lila could get to know her brother a bit and then have a fun week with my family up north. My parents are driving down next weekend so they would bring her back then. If Ian comes home on Monday, she'll already be gone. I guess there are worse things but I really wanted her to be part of his homecoming. Who knows, maybe it's better this way. It'll be what it is, we just have to go with it.