Update from San Antonio

Well we are here in San Antonio. Let me catch everyone up to date...

We went into St. John's hospital in Tulsa Friday evening. They had a bed set up for me in Kaedy's room so I was able to room in with her. I went home for awhile on Saturday to pack (since I hadn't known I could spend the night) and I also went and got all my hair chopped off. I really didn't like my "mullet" and I was unable to make it look otherwise, even though my hairdresser could make it look beautiful. Also, I HAD to do it everyday or else it looked really awful. Now I don't have to do it at all and it looks fine. It was a big shock for the girls and Michael but both girls said it looked better than before. I don't really know what Michael thinks, he is being very polite though. LOL! It is much easier for hospital upkeep.

Kaedra did not like being in the hospital at all. She wanted her nurses whom she was signing for by name and she did not like all the procedures being done on her. She ended up crying everytime anyone walked in the room for any reason. She also did not like not being able to get down on the ground and play. We did take her to the playroom for about 1 1/2 hours on Saturday and she LOVED that. She was just mad at not being allowed on the dirty hospital floor in her room! Just when she started to get used to everything, it was time to take her to San Antonio. She slept in the ambulance (and yes, Alison, I WAS following the right ambulance!!!! ROFL) and about half of the trip. She woke up probably somewhere over Dallas and commenced flirting with our EMT, Seth. She REALLY liked him. We got her onto the ambulance here in San Antonio and followed them to the hospital here and got her in her room with no problems. Unfortunately, Seth will not be on our plane ride home. :-( We had a great nurse named Wende, who Kaedy warmed up to as well and she WILL be with us on the way home, so that is good.

Once we were in the room, a nurse came in and took her vitals and then we were immediately whisked off for xrays and a ct scan. She wasn't too happy about being made to sit and lay still for so long, but she was a trooper. We came back up to our room just as she was needing to be suctioned. When we got to the room, we didn't have any suction catheters or saline and the suction machine was not hooked up properly. I grabbed a suction catheter from her "to go" bag and started to glove up while Michael went in search of saline. He also asked if our ambu-bag was hooked up and they said it was. When he got in the room, he found that the ambu-bag was not hooked up and it also ended up being adult sized, rather than baby sized. (Our ambu-bag which we brought with us would not fit onto their equipment) We could not find a nurse button to call a nurse and Kaedra was desatting fast. Michael went back to the nurses station to get someone and they ended up coming in and bagging her awhile with the wrong size bag and arguing with us over how she was doing. (Kaedy was satting in the low 60s and was turning blue) She had a MASSIVE plug blocking her airway. I couldn't even get the saline down her trach, it just sat in her trach, not going anywhere. We FINALLY got RT up there and they helped us and Kaedra ended up fine. After this all happened, I broke down and cried and cried and cried (and cried) which I haven't done since Kaedra got Trach'd 1 1/2 years ago! Michael ended up yelling at everyone and anyone who would listen about how the room was not set up for a trach'd baby and they had not been ready for her. Our nurse had never introduced herself, never shown us where the nurse call button was, never gone over anything with us. We were both really really upset. (We also learned our lesson about trusting hospital staff to know what they are doing and having everything we need.)

Needless to say, after all of that, we have been treated like royalty. They have bent over backwards to make sure that everything is okay now. We were apologized to by many many people and told that they would do anything to make our rough start better. The initial problem was that the nurse should have called RT as soon as we got there so they could get us set up. RT did not have us on their list, for some reason, of babies coming in. Anyway, things are going better now. They had a couch brought in for me to sleep on in Kaedra's room and it has a bathroom and a closet in it. It is a large room. The child life specialist is looking into finding us some mats to put on the floor so Kaedra can play there. I can't wait to get her surgery over and get back home.

Kaedy's surgery is scheduled for about 9am. The actual surgery will take approx 15 min, but she will be back with them for about an hour. Then she will come back up to her room and she will recover for a day or two and then we will come home. We are REALLY hoping we may be able to come home Wednesday, but they say that is unlikely since she is on a vent.

She isn't smiling much, isn't talking at all and will only sign a little bit (usually when no one is around). I miss my happy-go-lucky little one!! I also miss my other two precious girls.

Okay, that is it. I will update again after the surgery. I don't have all of my email addresses here so if you read this, please let other people who would want to know about it know it is up so they can have updates too! Thanks!