bad call

Yesterday was rough. I felt horrible myself. Jake is still sick of course. I was on call yesterday and I worked a fifteen hour day when all was said and done. I got to come home and cuddle Jake and eat dinner. Then I had to go back. I got home just in time to nurse Jake and put him to bed. I was almost in bed myself when they called me back again. It was midnight before I got home and then I couldn't go right to sleep. It took a bit. I finally got to sleep and then Jake woke up. I went in and rolled him over and put his pacifier back in and he was sound asleep again. We did this three times in the mere 4 hours I had to sleep. Now I'm not sure if I feel awful because I'm sick or really exhausted.





Mike has now had to take care of Jake for two whole days. I was so worried yesterday because I was gone so long and it was their first day alone together for real. Mike even got some house work done yesterday and he was putting dinner in the oven when I got home. I was really impressed! I was expecting both of them to be screaming. Today, that is more like what happened and I got home early. I could have come home earlier and would have like to, but now with our recent changes in how they pay us, I would have taken a substancial hit if I didn't stay at work for more than half the day. Isn't that nice? You will all be glad to know that I was not providing direct patient care though. I was a "helper." That was good. I did help to. I stood there and listened while the nasty urologist vented his crazy perceptions of how we do things. I just got what he needed and did what was asked. I did run the board for awhile while the charge nurse was gone (that is always frightening to put me in charge!) I did a bit of computer work. The important thing is that I never sat around like some people do!





I suppose, I need to get help support one of my husband's addictions. Pop is on sale and he bought his maximum allowed amount for the day. I just go in buy it take it out to the car and go back in again. He won't do that. If they won't let him buy what he wants he pouts instead. Maybe he should just give it up. Did I say that? I guess of his two addictions this is the one I would rather he have.

5 months, 200 posts

My little Jacob is 5 months today and I have been blogged 200 rambly posts! It is starting to seem less like yesterday that we had him. Actually, I can hardly believe he is only 5 months because he feels like he has been a huge part of our life for so long. My poor baby is sick again. Mike took him to the doctor all by himself. Or at least Mike thought that was happening. Our doctor's office is in a building connected to the hospital by walk ways and I was able to get my lunch during the time I managed to get an appointment. I must say, I am really impressed with our doctor. I was before when she was just taking care of me, but now with Jake even more so. She obviously know the trouble we have had so far and wanted to see him about an hour after I finally got to talk to a person in their office. I hate leaving a voice mail at the doctor's office! Anyway, she saw him during her lunch break too. He has a terrible cough. It sounds so junky. We are now the proud owners of our own nebulizer. Jake has two cute little masks that go with it and the little bugger will hold them him self.

I cried for a good half hour today before I came home because I feel so bad about not being able to keep my baby protected from the big bad world. I am having some anger issues again. I can't help but wonder if Jacob had been born a week earlier (a week smaller) would be have had all these lung issues. No one can say that his lungs would be better if he hadn't aspirated the meconium for sure, but they do say he is at higher risk. I just feel so bad for him and I feel guilty like I could have/should have done something different. I love this little man more than I can ever begin to say. I wish I could be sick for him. The crappy thing is that I am now getting it too.

Another first

Tonight we went out to dinner, just the two of us, for the first time since before Jake was born. We have never been real big on going out to restaurants to eat. We are much more takeout people. But we did it. It was hard too. I also had a perfect margarita. It was really good. I just couldn't believe how many babies were at the restaurant that were about Jake's age. It was certainly distracting for me. I had to watch them all and criticize the girl behind me that was feeding her baby inappropriate foods. That poor little girl is going to be sick and I thought she was going to choke on some of the things her mom was feeding her. Anyway, we did it. Now I can only imagine what it will be like when it is a babysitter we leave him with not Grandma and Grandpa.

Poor Jakey is sick. He has the runny nose and cough that all the other little ones at daycare have. I feel so bad for him. I wish I could be sick for him. I'm already taking antibiotics but I'm sure what he has is a virus. I have had my closest near miss with mastitis yet. I have had eight plugged ducts now with six of them being in the exact same place. Obviously I have a problem there. I worked with my OB on Thursday and he gave me some antibiotics. I went and talked with the lactation consultants that afternoon too. I forgot how uncomfortable it is to basically bare myself and then be manhandled. It didn't really matter. They helped me. This was the longest I had gone without being able to get the duct to clear and I was in a lot of pain. I am all bruised now from all the rubbing I did. The main lactation consultant was worried about me too. She wanted me to go home and lay in bed for two days. Hello!!! Anyway, between the plugged ducts and the biting baby I would really like to stop breast feeding but I'm not going to just yet. I'm going to try and go to six months still and then re-evaluate. We are almost there. I can make it one more month right?

Melt down

I went to get Jake from daycare today and he was sleeping. It was about 3:20. They told me he had been sleeping since 11:45!!! WTF! I couldn't believe they let him sleep so long. I also know it isn't a good sign that he was sleeping so long. The "girl" also told me that he sounded very hoarse that morning when he cried. GREAT! So I woke my baby up. I changed his wet and dirty diaper and I bundled him up in his bunting. On the way home I had to pull over because I was sobbing. I talked to a couple of people at work this morning and one of them has a son that just turned a year old. He is in the same room at daycare as Jake some of the time. He woke up last night with a terrible Croupy cough, sore throat, and a fever. The other co worker's son has just now after six days started doing better with his Croupy cough. I just felt so horrible about having Jake in daycare, about exposing him to all these snotty nosed, coughing little kids.

When Jake sleeps he pretty much loses all color. He is so pale it scares me. I have to check to make sure he is breathing because he truly looks lifeless. I just had a freak out moment that my little boy could get sick and die. (a family member of someone at work had that happen recently. A baby two months younger than Jake passed away with a respiratory infections). I know this won't happen to us, but it occurred to me that it was possible and I take my baby to germapalooza every day. I know I have to work and I know I am taking him to one of the best daycares in town, but they are me. I just can't stand that something could happen to him and I'm not there. It took me a few minutes to pull myself together so that I could drive again.


(the first picture is when we gave Jake cereal when he was four months old and the other picture is of Jake smacking his lips because he figured out that he could while he was in the hospital. Sorry, both pictures are blurry because he was on the move).

Griping #700 or so it seems

I am all over the place these days. Jake has been a little bear, but at least he is better. These top teeth are a lot worse than the bottoms were for us. I can't wait for the rest of them! I doesn't seem there is anything that makes him happy for more than about two minutes.

Work has been awful. We got presented with our "raises" just after Christmas. Yes, the normal areas of the hospital are going to experience nice raises. They have made weekends and shift work much more tolerable to those areas. However, the two departments that bring the most revenue, surgery and radiology, have been dealt a big blow. We are getting pay cuts. They have cut our on call pay. The hours we worked after our regular shift were paid to us in double time and now it has gone to time and a half. This is a SERIOUS blow to us. It also makes having to work call much less attractive, not that it was wonderful before. At least we felt like we were getting compensated for some of the horrible things we have to do. We have the potential for earning a partial extra shift bonus if we work a ton when we are on call but there are so many stipulations that it is going to be extremely rare for us to qualify. So this has made morale that was just barely picking up from an all time low, plummet to a level never before imaginable. Most of us have swallowed this bitter pill and still have indigestion but there is one that spewing bile all over. (get the picture). This fellow (there are only two brave, or crazy, guys in our department) is being totally inappropriate and our boss is doing nothing. He is carrying on and on and on. At every available opportunity he spouts off - during surgeries to doctors, while you are trying to get cases going, while you are cleaning up. We have a book where we are supposed to write positive things and he has put things in there. We have a communication board and he has written things on it. He has put hostile comic strips in the break room. But Friday, he finally went too far I think. He messed with the charge nurse. It doesn't matter what the rest of us say. We have been told he just needs some time to cool off. But this time he "vandalized" a flier put up by the charge nurse from a committee she is on. I don't remember what it said exactly but it was about treating each other with courtesy. The whole point of this committee is to try and improve morale throughout the hospital and to encourage departments to get to know one another and work together better. It will be interesting to see what happens this week!

This week I did three tubals one day. The first one was only 21 years old. She has three children. The next one I did was literally two weeks younger than me. This was her ninth pregnancy and fifth baby. I had very mixed emotions. I felt great sadness for any one to suffer four miscarriages. I tried to imagine my life with five children and I just couldn't fathom it. The next patient was a few months younger than me and she had just given birth to her third child, but the first with her fiance. She said that between the two of them this is their fifth child. Yet another situation I just couldn't imagine myself in right now. Thank goodness I am not in these positions but it gets me thinking. What do I want? Do I want another baby? Yes and no. I love children and I think I want another one, but I am terrified of going through the whole process again. What will happen? How long will it take to get pregnant this time? What if I can't get pregnant? What horrible things will happen to me this time? How do I take care of Jake? When do we start? What about Jake? I already wish I could give him more time and attention. I want to give him everything I can and maybe that means he should be an only child. I always wished I had a sibling that was closer to my own age and thought I would do that for my own baby. How are we going to pay daycare for two???

On a good note, we still have a lot of details to work out, but it looks like we are going to have a different place to live soon. Someone I worked with has a house that is going to be up for sale soon. His youngest daughter graduates from high school this year and he has been working at a different hospital for about a year and a half I think. He bought another house there some time ago so his wife will finally get to join him at the end of the school year. The problem is we still haven't recovered financially from this past year. The solution, well, if we can come to an appropriate agreement, we will rent the house for one year and then buy it with the rent applying toward ownership. I imagine we will be able to come up with an agreement. The housing market isn't great in this area for sellers and he knows that. He knows we know that too. So hopefully we can work something out. It is a much nicer and a larger home than we are in.

Long week

This week has been terribly long. I have had three late shifts and I just hate late shifts. I did handle it better than the last time I had three in one week but it was still hard. I spend too little time with my little Peanut. However, my little Peanut has been a bear this week!! He is working on tooth number six and it has him just pissed off. Daycare has always said what a good baby he is, one of their best, but the last three days they have said his has been really fussy. These top teeth seem to be worse. I hope we get a break with them soon. What four and half month old needs six teeth???

I took Jake in yesterday for his follow up doctor appointment. She gave him the all clear. He still has a bit of an occasional cough, but he hasn't had to have a breathing treatment for a couple of days. I was excited because this was our fourth visit for Jake to our doctor, but it was going to be the very first time she wasn't going to treat mom or dad. Wrong!!! She was talking to me and asked me how long I had had pink eye. Pink eye? What are you talking about, I don't have pink eye. Look in the mirror over there. Oh, for God's sake I do have pink eye! Two hours earlier it had been fine. Daycare strikes again, except Jake hasn't gotten it. Oh well, at least I was getting it treated before I even knew I had it!

Mike is out right now and his vacation will start as soon as he gets back. I have been dreading this. He is so lazy when he is on vacation and he ends up driving me nuts. I hate to come home from work, after having to pick up the baby, and then clean up after him. I just hate it and he is a huge slob. He really is. He keeps throwing in coat in the middle of the dining room floor. We have a perfectly good coat closet not five steps from where he dropped his coat. Anyway, I don't want to get started on that because I will go on forever! Lets just say I am counting the days until his vacation is over already.

Back to work

We are all finally feeling better. Jake was the first one back to "normal." I have been doing much better since yesterday and Mike is finally doing better today. Last week was so long and now it is back to the salt mine. Oh well.

We had an interesting opportunity come up and we are doing a lot of thinking, negotiating (amongst ourselves), and planning. We need to do a bit of research too. The thing is we have hope. Hope of getting out of this house. I just don't know if it is going to work and Mike says we will make it work no matter what. It also means I am having to deal with some of my trust/control issues. But at least we have some hope. I want to get the baby out of here so badly.

Learn something new

I wish I had know it was De-lurking week sooner. Well, I guess I haven't been home much, or at all some days, this week. Who is out there lurking???

Not a good start!

Well, we debated and debate how much I should take out in my flex account this year because I was so far off last year. Looks like I was wrong again this year and it is only January 10th! Monday night, actually Tuesday morning, I woke up because Jake was coughing. I got up with him and fed him and he had this crappy cough. It was new, he hadn't had it before. I could hear secretions trying to clear when he coughed and then his little airway would plug. He couldn't do anything for a second or two or what felt like a million and then he broke it free. This happened a few times over the next few hours and I debated and debated taking him to the ER. I held him and he slept upright and was breathing fine. That is, when I wasn't having to put him down to run to the bathroom to get sick. Mike and I both got terribly sick within about 30 minutes of each other. We were violently ill for hours. I put Jake back in his bed when he was doing better and I was so exhausted I couldn't stay awake any longer and I slept for about an hour. Mike came and woke me up because he was so sick his muscles were starting to cramp. So I got up then and called in sick (I don't remember the last time I did that). I also told my boss I was going to the ER. So I get everyone ready and carried Jake out. Mike would have had me carry him out too if I could.

So it we were all patients. We were put in two different rooms, but at least my room had the bathroom and thank God for that! The doctor looked at Mike and then me and gave us the same thing and said we had a virus and we would get better in a few days. He acted like I was being a nervous nelly mom about Jake though. Well, his "just a little cough" turned out to be pneumonia and he ended up getting admitted for a couple of nights. It was so terrible. My poor baby was sick and he needed me and I was so sick and so tired that I could barely take care of him. He would want me to pick him up and I would lean into his crib and hold him because I was so weak I didn't think I could actually pick him up. Or I would be weak and so tired I thought I would fall asleep and drop him. My poor boy! I still feel really bad. I am still having to take zo.fran and lom.odil and they start wearing off before the next dose is due.

Jake acted like he felt the best of the three of us even when we went in. Now he is better and Mike and I are still sick. Poor baby though. He got three days of IV antibiotics and now we have a week of orals to give him. I have to give him breathing treatments and he is so good for that. He just loved all the women up there taking care of him. He flashed big old grins until he had them eating out of the palm of his little hand.

We got home this afternoon and Mike and were sitting trying to recover. The house looked like a bomb had gone off because Mike had been picking up after himself while I was staying in the hospital with Jake. I just kept smelling a fool smell. I asked Mike if he had gas and he said no. I asked him if he could smell it and he couldn't of course. Well I came down to the computer and I started a load of wash. Pretty soon after the wash started I could hear water hitting the floor. I could see it dripping off some plumbing. Great! Just what we need! Then I went up to the bathroom to see about the water up there. I found sewage had backed up in the bathtub and that is what I was smelling. Gross! We had to call a plumber and get them here to snake the line to the tank. Bring the baby home to this. I just wanted to cry yet again.

Hmm...

Last Friday I had an interesting experience that was a bit emotional for me. I dug around in a drawer in the bathroom that I haven't been into in a quite some time. It is where "feminine products" are kept. I haven't needed anything from this drawer because of the pill I take and the breast feeding. Well, I dug around in this drawer for something I just knew was there. I thought there was one, just one and I couldn't remember what the wrapper looked like, but I knew it when I saw it. It was an expensive, fancy HPT. My hands were shaking and I was sweating. I was incredibly nauseous. (there in lies the problem). I closed the door and looked at the package. Expiration date of 5/08. I laughed at the thought of having it "expire." I took the test and it took forever. I was scared. The hourglass just kept being on the screen. I put it in the cupboard and went and did a few of my normal just get home from work things. Then I went back in the bathroom and I closed the door. I opened the cupboard but I closed my eyes and pulled the test out. "Not Pregnant" is what it said. I felt relief. Then I cried. This was a totally different experience for me. I am used to looking at them and crying but for different reasons. I just went through about a million emotions and thoughts. I remembered how much it hurt to see this before and the laughed at the relief now.

I have been not feeling well. I have been nauseated quite a lot. I have had a bad back that is very familiar. My sense of smell has been hyperactive. All of these things and few others just feel so familiar. Especially the nausea. I haven't thrown up, but just barely. I don't know what is going on, but I was worried that one of those few times we have had "relations" since having Jake that something happened. I think I want another baby. I absolutely adore Jake, but I worry about having to share my time. I want to be able to give another baby the time I have given Jake, and that could never happen, and I want to be able to keep giving Jake every minute I can. I don't know. I am still mixed. I don't know how hard it would be for me to get pregnant again. I just know I don't want it to happen yet, for sure. I am still not quite completely healed from Jake. I know things won't ever be the way they were before, but I am sure that they aren't as good as they are going to get yet.

I am also concerned about my risk of a repeat of palsy. I am still not back to normal. Actually, it has been worse lately. A lot more painful and I have been having issues with spasticity. I called the doctor's office the day it was the worst and it took two weeks to actually get a message back from the doctor. I was in crying pain and it took TWO WEEKS. Well, I almost called the doctors directly, but I didn't want to abuse my position any more than I already have. They made me get an MRI since I didn't get one while I was pregnant. That was a week ago and I haven't heard anything yet. They are concerned because I am not better than this. They are concerned that I might have a "growth" that is causing compression of my facial nerve. Great! Or maybe it is worse because of stress. We are still struggling a bit. I am so glad Christmas is over and Mike has been working with regularity. I was hoping we would have ourselves pulled back together before our tax return but it looks like we will have to use our tax return to get ourselves back on track.

We have had wonderful new at work that has helped the stress level of us all. We were told we were getting a 3% raise, which is our normal cost of living raise and that there were a whole bunch of new things that were going to be great. Well, they may be great for normal units, but we took a devastating blow. They cut our pay. They are paying us differently now. They have increased shift differentials and added weekend pay and made holiday pay better, but they cut our call pay. We were getting double time when we got called in for emergencies and had to work on call, but now we only get 1.5 time. I know that is pretty common for most places, but it is going to mean a significant pay cut for all of the nurses in my department. What a great Christmas present! As you can imagine, things have gone from cranky to a battlefield. They know they have us in a bind. Most of us can't leave the area. There isn't another hospital to go to so we are getting screwed. And we were told that because "we" got all these other increases, we shouldn't expect a market raise this year. That is usually our big raise. They attempt to make our pay competitive or at least comparable to other hospitals we compete with. My department doesn't benefit from these other increases, call pay is cut, and most likely no market adjustment. Well happy f*ing New Year to us. Our moral has been struggling for so long and this just was more than we could handle. No one has quite, yet. People are openly looking for other jobs. Can you afford a $5000-$12000 pay cut (depending on how much call you take)? Neither can any of us! So that has helped the old stress level as well. I just wish I could get Mike to move away.

Time

Time. I never seem to have any of it. I have a few minutes now only because I am on call and I can't be alone with Jake. I have to wait until my in laws are home and then go pick him up so I have to be quick.

We had an interesting Christmas. It was wonderful to get to see my family for once. The last time I got to spend a Christmas with my sister was seven years ago. My aunt finally made it to see Jake. My sister's visit was too short and my aunt's and mother's were too long. My aunt isn't doing at all well and it is very hard to deal with, especially because we have tried and tried to get her to get help.
It was wonderful to have a little someone to celebrate our Christmas with. Santa brought Jake this Cookie monster that he is way too little to play with. I think Santa really wanted to play with it himself! Poor Jake was a little overwhelmed by all the people though. We have all been sick. Jake and I just got it first and are getting better where as Mike got it a bit later and his is dragging on.
My nephews got to meet their cousin for the very first time! I think all of their other cousins have graduated from college already. Jake didn't hold their attention very long though. The younger two didn't mind playing with some of his toys though.

I hardly even recognized my aunt when she burst though a door and almost knocked me over. She had eye surgery and lost her very thick glasses so that is great. I knew she had gained some weight since I saw her last year at my grandma's funeral. I just didn't realize how much. I was shocked.
Jakey got a jumper for Christmas and he loves it. He loves to stand without one of us helping him. We were going to get him a saucer until they told us how much he loves the jumper at daycare. He has some figuring out to do still but he sure talks to it a lot!
I have so much to type. There have been a lot of things not going very well and I need to vent, but I need to go get my boy. Hopefully soon I can write.