The Nightly Update, the Third Tuesday Night

Tonight I left this goof of a baby at the hospital with Jarod so I could come home and spend the night with this squirrel.



It was kind of nuts.

You can't even muster a laugh, can you? My jokes are getting worse by the day. That must mean that it's time for us to get our baby out of the freaking hospital. I call it a freaking hospital as opposed to just a hospital because today we had to move to a triple room out of the double room, which we were sharing with no one because no one wanted the crib space we had before, as it was too small. Alas, someone with something contagious was admitted, so they needed us to move out in order to give the new patient a private room. And by "us," I mean Elvie and all the stuff I've amassed there, along with poor Jarod who did nothing to deserve this kind of chaos. Did Jarod stockpile half full bottles of sparkling water and books no one would actually read? No, that was me. But Jarod had to move it all. Sorry, Jarod.

The big to-do today other than the late night move was that Elvie got a wound vac. The pediatric surgery attending came in this morning and said that the wound that opened up over her incisions wouldn't heal on its own, so we needed to do something else. Wound vac is apparently the way to go, according to everyone who has an opinion on these matters, so we did it. Because Elvie is a little bit feisty, they decided to do it under anesthesia so that they could get the wound cleaned well and get the wound vac placed without issue. She did fine except that she didn't get to eat for twelve hours. If you recall, one of our goals is to increase her formula intake. So that was a little setback, but the good news is that our main pediatric surgeon, who did the wound vac procedure today, is willing to let us go home before she is eating as well as they'd like. We discussed that home is often the key to reaching goals like that, and since he knows how well I fattened her up before, he trusts my baby feeding skills.

I also spoke with urology about removing the foley catheter, and I was told that if she is doing well tomorrow, they will try it. Since we now have a new piece of apparatus attached to her with the introduction of the wound vac today, I'd love to lose at least one tube. On Thursday she'll finish the antibiotics, and I'm crossing my fingers for PICC line removal. Also on my hit list is the JP drain, which is draining the lower part of her surgery site. In my non-medical logic, it seems like the wound vac should pick up some of the drainage slack, and the JP should not be as necessary anymore. But then again, I might be delusional.

I might also be really tired and wanting to crawl into my own bed in my pajamas. There won't be any sleeping in happening tomorrow, as I need to get back to the hospital so that Jarod can work, so I'd better take advantage of what little time I have with my own pillows, not to mention the sweet little squirrel that wanted me home so badly. She fell asleep next to me before I snuck out to get work done, and I need to get back in there to snuggle her up so she has plenty to go on while I'm away at the hospital for just a little bit longer. Maybe, just maybe, one more night next to me will give us one night without tears when it's time for me to go back to the hospital.

Maybe.

I'm hoping.

We'll see.