Giving Shots and Back to Bottles
Hello dear readers. It's been a long while since I've blogged about our many unusual adventures in parenting. I've been pretty swamped with work for the last month and a half. The spring is a busy time for me anyway, so when Nathan decided to show up early, it toppled my very carefully balanced schedule.
I'm happy to say that I'm finally caught up and not so stressed out about work any more. Thus I thought I should write a blog post with this spare few minutes.
As I write this, mom and Nathan are napping in the chair next to me in the NICU at Beth Israel. Earlier today, Nathan had his second swallow study at Children's Hospital. Unfortunately, the study showed that he's still aspirating (taking food down the wrong pipe) when he tries to swallow milk of a standard thickness. The good news is that the the doctors have determined that the thickener that was allowing him to eat by mouth was not the cause of his elevated bilirubin levels, so tonight we gave him his first bottle after a week long break.
Somehow he knew it was coming, because he was totally psyched. (Video of Nathan trying to eat everything in sight to follow.) He finished the whole bottle in about 15 minutes, and was looking for more. After a couple of good burps he was off to sleep.
Earlier this week I got to experience something completely new. Its a pretty regular occurrence for Nathan to get a shot, but I've never in my life had to give one. Katie and I new this was coming. We were informed that Nathan would need to go home on blood thinners - and that we would have to give him a shot twice a day - about a month ago. At that point my biggest question was: how do I practice giving a shot? Surely they don't teach people to give shots by just showing them what to do and let them start stabbing at people. In my head I pictured something that looked like one of those CPR dolls that was used for this sort of thing. The doctors said they thought that giving shots was practiced on a piece of fruit or something like that. Later on, Katie was taken through a lesson using a rubber glove stuffed with cotton balls. Katie says it was really good for practicing keeping the needle steady post poke.
On Tuesday we got a visit from very nice nurse practitioner from Children's, for shot training. To my relief she produced a small rubber pin cushion looking item for us to learn on. After a little bit of time with that, it was time for one of us to do the deed for real. I volunteered to go first.
The trick of all this is that it is possible to do it wrong. Its not just poke and plunge. If the needle goes too shallow, then he won't get drug in his system. Too deep, and we might hit muscle and really hurt him. We had to be shown how to pinch just the skin and put the needle in at a good angle.
The worst part of it was right before I put the needle in. I stood
there pinching his skin the way they showed us with the needle poised and ready. I could have stood there for a long time if I hadn't been prompted by the nurse. His leg gave a sudden jerk (which I was naively unprepared for) at the first prick, and the plunger was harder to push than on the practice runs, but in the end, I was told I did a good job by nurse Brenda. Mommy had been standing by with some sugar water to help distract him and it was over before I knew it.
I have to say that, in spite of the horror of it all, Nathan's reactions to things of this nature are hopelessly cute. He usually doesn't respond to the prick right away and he rarely cries. His expression just changes to a look of utter bewilderment. Like someone just cut him off on the highway from four lanes away. Sort of a "wait ,WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'!?" All the while vigorously sucking on his pacifier. He's a good boy. He doesn't cry so his parents won't feel bad about giving him a shot.