Fired the night nurse!

September 19, 2011

It’s 2am and I just fired our night nurse. I’m so sick to my stomach right now and my blood pressure is through the roof. Last night my husband went to bed last and specifically told her to leave the door cracked open. (I had told her that previously also). We have glass French doors to Wyatt’s room which allows us to see his crib from the living room and we can also see halfway into his room from upstairs. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I always look down to check on things. I caught our night nurse sleeping in Wyatt’s room with the door shut! She was on the rocking chair, covered in her own blanket, her feet propped up and her head bend over to the left leaning on her shoulder. I was furious and started shaking. She jumped up when I came in the room. Wyatt was sleeping and if it wasn’t for me not wanting to wake him up, she would have gotten it from me. I kept it together though (for Wyatt’s sake only) and told her to leave. She actually had the guts to tell me “I wasn’t sleeping. I was just taking a break and putting my feet up. Please give me a chance.” Are you serious? I saw her and her facial expression said it all, she was lying. I don’t have to see the face to know that she was sleeping. Body language says it all. I was furious and shaking. It took everything out of me not to yell at her. I told her I could not talk to her and she needed to leave right now. She kept on trying to reason with me and I just had to turn my back to her and look at Wyatt. You want another chance? Why, because luckily nothing went wrong while you were snoozing off?  The possibilities of what could have gone wrong, it makes me nauseous just to think about it. He could have moved and his trach could have come out enough to cause a large air leak but not large enough to set off any alarms on the vent and then the breaths he is getting wouldn’t be enough. His body doesn’t physically respond to low oxygenation and/or high co2. It’s not like he would get restless and wake up or start breathing more on his own while sleeping to compensate. Or what if he would have woken up at any time and started crying silently which could easily turn into a breath holding episode. The alarms wouldn’t go off until he’s already blue… I’m so mad at myself for trusting anyone with his care. This garbage makes me want to get a second crib and have him sleep in our bedroom upstairs at night. There are no taking chances, his life depends on it.