CHLA - Day Five (The Final Day)

Besides the midnight feeding of the Pedialyte last night, I didn't do the regular wake-ups to give Ryan the Pedialyte... I was much to tired, and he wasn't complaining.

I came to realize (again) the different levels of involvement from parents. Jeff and I are both very involved and participatory. We make sure that we are constantly attending to Ryan's needs and don't rely on the nurses for all of his care. When his machines are beeping, we know how to silence them and know when to call in a nurse for assistance. The beeping machines can be quite obnoxious when you just leave them alone. (They do not stop beeping on their own).

Our new roommate last night was an infant (3 months old) with a respiratory issue going on. She had accelerated breathing - especially when she would cry. When the mother first got there, I tried to explain to her where the silence button was on the machine and that she could make the machine stop beeping - but would need to call the nurse in (She was not fluent in English, so this was somewhat difficult). I went out to get her nurse. They located her call button and I assumed this would fix the situation. It didn't. Then, the Mom went to sleep and just let her baby cry and the machines go off all night. I had to keep calling her nurses so that I could get on with my rest. As it turns out, the nurses took care of the baby all night - but most of the crying was resolved by feeding the baby.
- Where is that social worker when you need her?
I digress.

Ryan had a very good night. Despite all of the noise, he slept very well. I noticed that he was stirring more in the night - and I got a kick out of his arm hanging out the side of the crib rails in the night. At some point in the night I heard him crying when the nurse was in. I believe she was there checking his vitals but had woke him up in the process. I saw that the nurse was using her flashlight to look all over the place but didn't quite get what she was doing. I realized later (as Ryan was still crying) that she was looking for his pacifier.

During this hospital stay, Ryan has become quite reliant upon his pacifier. It has been very soothing for him and we've noticed that it has been soothing for him around the time he is going to go to sleep. The nurse was concerned that he was having gas pain and it was causing him to cry, but when I had located a pacifier (not the original one he went to sleep with...that one was found later in the morning on the floor) - he quieted as soon as I put it in his mouth and fell right back to sleep. I'm curious how his pacifier will play a role once we return home.

The surgical team made their rounds at about 7a. They said that they would be moving him to oral pain medication and IV and that Ryan could eat as much as he wanted today. If he sustained on his own, he was free to go home today. This sounds too easy, right? The rest of the day just flew by:
- The Pain Management team arrived a couple hours later. They agreed that Ryan looked great and would suspend the continuous Morphine drip.
- Ryan then got a sponge bath - and we removed all that was hooked up to him except the IV needle (just in case they needed to re-connect fluids later) and his catheter.
- Ryan steadily increased his intake of milk
- Orders then came in that he could have his catheter removed and we were told that he would be able to get discharged once he could produce a wet diaper.
- By 4p - we were told that Ryan would be discharged. All was good. He was eating good throughout the day, his body was functioning as it should, he was in little discomfort - and I'm sure that someone was waiting for his bed! ...so the discharge process began.

Thinking that Ryan had a fever, I was struggling with whether or not I should tell the surgeon on the floor about it. I figured that if I said something, we could end up staying another night or two. If I didn't say anything, and he got an infection, we'd just be back in the hospital. I couldn't be selfish. We currently had a bed in the hospital and if we came back, we'd just end up packed into their emergency room. The right thing was to address it while we were already admitted. As it turned out, Ryan was NOT running a temperature (I still think he felt too warm) - but great for us!

We happily said our goodbyes and headed to the hotel to pack up and check out. We arrived home at about 8p.

Hooray.