Thursday/Friday recap

At this point in the day I literally couldn't come up with a better title than Thursday/Friday recap but at least it's accurate.  Just wanted to take a few minutes to recap the last two days.  Yesterday, they did another ROP eye exam.  They have determined that surgery is absolutely going to happen on her right eye but now the question is when.  They will do another ROP sometime the beginning of this week and will determine if her eyes have the right amount of fibrous tissue build up to maximize the effectiveness of the surgery so her eyes can continue to develop properly.  Basically they are waiting for her benefit at this point but the poor girl has to keep going through the eye exams which we are told are unpleasant for her until they see what they want in her eyes.

Zoey did not gain any weight on Thursday so they changed up some things in her TPN, the IV supplement she's been on forever and they want to get her off.  Unfortunately she still really needs it though to keep growing and gaining weight since the half of her intestines that are working just aren't giving her body enough time to absorb the right amount of nutrients and calories from the milk she's being fed.  Mostly all they are giving her at this point is dextrose and amino acids which in lamens terms means sugar and protein.  The surgeon suggested this in rounds this morning to try to plump her up so they can get her put back together.  Friday's weigh in actually showed a 30 gram loss in weight but the nurse said with the new TPN hopefully she'll really show the effects of that in the coming days by packing on the ounces.

Thankfully this Mama was in Rochester today, Friday, because some big things happened.  First, I needed to exchange the pump I've been using because I think I wore it out or something...it just wasn't working the same as when I got it causing me some pain.  So I exchanged it without a problem and thought all was great.  Boy, was I wrong!  More on that in a minute.  Next, I felt really proud as I reflected on my own health progress as I walked the long halls of the subway from the parking ramp to the Mayo health store because a little over a month ago, I was unable to walk that whole distance.  Between post c-section pain and the blood pressure issues I was still having, it was quite a struggle.  It might not sound like much but the subway totals just over 5 miles.  Granted, I was not walking the whole length, but today I went quite a ways down and back and did the stairs too!  It really sounds silly as I type it, but it reminded me of how much I've bounced back too.  Much later, when I got back to RMH at 930pm, I went to do my motherly duties and pump some more liquid gold and the new pump that I just exchanged earlier today did not work.  WHAT?!  You've got to be kidding me!  This is my lifeline and now I have nothing to get me through the night, much less the weekend.  So I checked with RMH...nothing.  I called the NICU and they said they'd check and get back to me.  I needed the one thing you can't just to buy at Target.  SO I headed back to the hospital to get at least one more pumping in for the night.  On my way back there, the charge nurse called and said she had one for me to use for the weekend so this was heaven sent!  But guess what store is only open 8am-5pm Monday-Friday?  Yep, you guessed it...the Mayo health store who is renting me the machine that doesn't work.  Thankfully Ray will be here on Monday and will resolve it for me (Thanks in advance!) but that really makes things difficult when they are only open such limited hours.

And finally, I saved the best for last and I'll try saying this without TMI.  To date, Zoey has been on tube feeds and will eventually have to learn how to suck, swallow, and breathe ALL at the same time to eat normally one day in the future.  Today was day 1 of trying to have her latch on to Mama to start practicing.  Zoey handled it like a PRO and I couldn't have been happier!  It feels like we finally have one less thing to worry about as long as she keeps it up.  They've been giving her a pacifier too in order to encourage that reflex and she's been taking that well.  Later when starting Kangaroo care with her, she laid there like she was ready to practice again.  It was cute and I laughed and told her I was proud of her for wanting to put more work into it but that we were only practicing it once a day right now and it was time for her to just relax for us to nap together.  So we did just that.  Despite the nap, I'm exhausted as I've been up since 5am so I'm off to bed since the alarm will be going off in a couple hours, and then a couple hours after that, and a couple hours after that.