Friday, September 12, 2008

Today has been a stressful day. Hunter was moved to a different room. He is still on the 6th floor. He is in room 6684. The day started with a family that moved into the room we were in. Apparently every adult in that room was a smoker. The whole entire room was immediately filled up with the smell of smoke. This happened once the adults entered the room. It almost made me gag. And, I'm an ex-smoker. That's how bad it was. Hmmm...let's think about this. My baby came in here for respiratory failure and chronic lung disease. I just couldn't let this go. He's my baby and if I don't stand up for him, no one will. So, I was pretty adamant that we needed to move to a different room. This is how we ended up in this room.

Stressor #2: Hunter's respiratory rate was running higher than normal. His lips were quivering and his arms were shaking. I had to wait an hour or two of wondering what the heck was going on. I was anxious! One and a half hours took forever. They finally think that it is a medication withdraw he received in the PICU. They had to start him back on ativan and have to slowly wean him from that. This is something I thought they did in the PICU. Hmmmm?????...not sure what's going on at this point.

Stressor #3: He has been ordered echocardiograms and ultrasound. We found something that looked like a hernia in his scrotum. This requires an ultrasound to take a look. Echocardiogram -They are still concerned about how hard the heart is working to pump blood through the blood vessels of the lungs. They may have to tweak his dosage.

Stressor #4: Did I mention that I watched as a respiratory therapist wipe his snotty nose on his hand, up his arm; then, reached for my son to give him a breathing treatment. Yep, my son - the one with chronic lung disease that is highly susceptible to viral infections that could put him right back into the PICU with respiratory failure again. I was pretty sarcastic. Funny, a different RT has been working on Hunter since then.

Everything that Hunter should not be exposed to - it has happened on this floor and I am hot! Smokers and snotty noses, I'm not even going to ask..what else? Plus, I'm exhausted. That probably has an impact on my coping methods at this point. Honestly, I'm not having a nervous breakdown. I think if that was going to happen, it would have happened 100 days ago...Hunter and me...we are fighting this together. He's not giving up and neither am I.