Cat's Nine Lives

That's it!  I let my guard down for one minute...I am officially with a sore throat.  Now most of the time the expected response would be (and truly expected) "suck it up Buttercup!", but this is so horrible.  I can't go into the NICU while sporting a sore throat AND I held Braeden not once but twice yesterday, it will be so horrific if I made him sick.  Think positive, think positive, think positive...do you ever just want to stop being so damn positive?  I certainly do!  Wait, here it comes....wait for it....POOR ME!!! HA!  There are times when one just needs to feel sorry for one's self!  I think after the past 10 weeks that it is probably not the first time I've felt that but it feels good to say nonetheless (with a smile on my face).

Mr. B (from what I hear via the phone from his nurses) had a good day.  He is still SATing at around 35% oxygen but is plugging along, the longer he can be off the vent the stronger those chest muscles/lungs become.  He had another few 'awake' times today (boo hoo poor me again), which is so exciting to hear.  Mike and my sister Monique (Auntie Mobee) are at the hospital now (poor, bah, can't be bothered anymore).  I am hoping she'll get to see him awake as it is her first meeting of him.  It seems so foreign to me that people don't 'know' him when you all know so much about him.  That time will come I suppose.

We found out a few things yesterday when we were up last night.  One being that he'll probably require a head-shaping helmet for a time.  Now that he is losing weight (and gaining, and losing), his head shape is very wonky.  Yup, all the medical terms I've learned and 'wonky' seems to describe it the best.  It is very misshapen the poor kid.  The nurses will be working on it, turning him from side to side and now on his tummy (yippee!) sometimes.  The second thing we found out is that my sweet child is obviously part CAT.  No, that isn't a typo, I said cat.  I found out from Braeden's Primary Nurse that she made a mistake last week, not a little one either.  Braeden was given 10 TIMES his dosage of Emoxaparin (anti-coagulant).  There are many words that I could use at this point to describe how I feel but I am trying to keep this blog mostly PG...Slug in a ditch (thanks Auntie Terri)!!!!  Now his nurse (obviously) feels terrible and it wasn't done with malicious intent BUT, it very easily could have (should have???) killed him.  The one major issue of having that much of the drug in his system would have been bleeding.  If he in fact did still have the bleed in his brain...well, I'll let you just think about that.  The sad part is, no matter how mad I can be, it was simple human error that was checked by another senior nurse and was missed again.  Both nurses that drew and checked the dosage were both senior nurses and have over 40+ yrs between them nursing.  It certainly goes to show we are all human.  So I had a nice 'chat' with the Neonatologist's Director about it and she told me of the 'plan' that they've now instituted to make sure this never happens again.  Moving on.  What?  It's not like I can change it, or do anything to turn back time.  Yes I am certainly angry and certainly concerned but what I CAN tell you is that his nurse will double, triple and quadruple check every dose that she measures for him from here on in!

So yes, I believe that B is part cat, he certainly has at least 9 lives.  I'm not altogether certain how many he's used thus far in his 7 weeks of life but I know we've almost lost him more times than I care to count.  Do you think he'll always land on his feet too??