Finally Home

September 15, 2011

Wow, what a ride it has been since discharge from the NICU last Thursday. I don’t have much time so here is the short version: Sleep deprivation with food and pee breaks being optional!...

His ride home on the ambulance went well. He introduced himself to the paramedics by showing them one of his famous blue spells while being put in his car seat and onto the stretcher. And as horrible as this sounds, it was comforting to know that they saw him have “the Smurf’s” before they started driving. I had to follow in my car so I would have hated to have them panic seeing these episodes for the first time and possibly turning back around towards the hospital. Once on the ambulance, Wyatt apparently slept all the way though. Getting home was chaos – the whole day was chaos actually. There were way too many people all talking at once and handing me paperwork and really I had no idea what the heck was going on. But hey, Wyatt got home, so that’s all that matters. He was actually all smiling when we finally got him into his own crib at home… By now we have learned that the mood of the day depends on the type of nurse we get. The first day, all the nurses were late for each shift which did not sit right with me at all. Since then they tend to show up on time (mostly) but there have been gabs in coverage and I usually find out the day of who’s coming when. Then each shift, it’s a few hours of giving the nurses the scoop on Wyatt’s condition and his likes and dislikes and letting them get comfortable with him. Some nurses you can tell right away, they got it and are not nervous because of “the Smurf’s” and others you know right away, it’s going to be a long day or night and they’re just there for back-up. Hopefully it’ll settle down in the next week or so though and we’ll have consistency in the nurses we get day and night. Right now, I always need someone else to take care of the other kids simply because I don’t trust the nurses yet to adequately handle his episodes and I’m constantly on the phone with Medicaid, CMS, SSI, and all his different Specialists. There are his Pediatrician, Pulmonology, Cardiology, Neurology, Nephrology, Surgery, Genetics, Physiatry and soon they’ll be Early Steps (Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy) and most likely GI and ENT for follow-ups. He has at least 2 appointments each week for the next month and a half and each one of them requires an ambulance ride to and from. It’s quite a scene to watch us get ready and hit the road and then there are the looks on people’s faces to see a baby on a ventilator and rolling into the doctor’s office with EMS as part of the crew. I almost want to get sarcastic and ask those starring parents the question of whether they think they made the right choice of a doctor’s office… but I won’t be that mean, yet. Hopefully most of Wyatt’s follow ups appointments will be a one time deal and then only as needed, otherwise I’ll lose my mind.

Here is a little video... and the doctors were worried about coordination issues, hah.