Something's gotta give

The quick and dirty is that he gained 21 grams again today. No other changes, really.

He was fussy as crap tonight, though no one can really figure out why. I think he's gassy, they say his belly feels fine. I still believe my intuition over their belly poking.

I did not like either of his nurses today.

I slept like 5 hours.

All I ate today was a bowl of oatmeal.

Why do I share this?

Because I'm tired. And sad. And frustrated. And maybe a little angry.

His day nurse answered the phone with the tone that said "WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING ME?"

She answered the phone and when I told her who I was, her reply was "Yeah?" That is not an acceptable answer to me.

Turns out she's the nurse that my NICU friend (Robbie's girlfriend's mom) actually requested never to be assigned to again. I can tell why.

She was nice enough when I got to the hospital tonight, but David said that when he got there, Robbie was crying and of course no one was doing anything. His blood pressure on the screen (taken early in the morning) was way higher than normal. Usually that only happens if he's REALLY ANGRY when you take it. I can't help but think she'd gotten him hysterical and not given him a chance to calm down. And my friend says she had a preemie, so she should fucking know better.

His night nurse seemed nice and was certainly paying close attention to him, but I think I offended her. I had never seen her before and when I said as much- really just looking to get to know her- she instantly launched into how she'd been a NICU nurse for 23 years and she was very capable. I don't think she meant to sound defensive, rather was trying to reassure me, but I felt like we both walked on eggshells around each other after that.

The weekdays are so hard because I can't seem to put in less than a 17 hour day. And that's just from leaving the house to returning. That doesn't count the time to pump, pack all my shit & get ready in the mornings, or the time to pump, clean & sterilize everything at night. The alarm goes off at 7, and I'm rarely in bed before 2.

Work just pisses me off. I'm barely productive at all. My mind is just too easily distracted and then I rather dislike my new boss. She gave me a ton of crap about pumping at work and it wasn't until I basically threatened (sincerely) to call a lawyer that they shut the hell up about it. I feel no loyalty to the place at all. I'm normally a very loyal, hard-working, responsible employee, but it's gone. I just can't give a shit about phone service right now.

And eating. Well, eating sucks. My gallbladder/whatever issue isn't improving. I'm in some measure of discomfort almost constantly. And if I eat the wrong thing, it hurts bad enough to wake me up at night. I'm tired enough w/o losing sleep over this crap, so I've been mostly living on organic applesauce, Special K cereal bars and mashed potatoes & gravy from the hospital cafeteria. I ate some oatmeal today and felt just plain weird all afternoon & evening. I swear I can feel the damned thing in there spasming. I've lost something like 12 or 13 pounds in the last 2 weeks. Not that I don't have the extra weight to lose, but this is not a healthy diet. I'm fucking HUNGRY.

I see the doctor again on Wednesday morning to see what the next step is. At this point, I've begun begging the husband to just reach in and pull the damned thing out himself. The doc thinks it could be an ulcer, gastritis or just plain so much stress that I'm producing so much stomach acid that it's eating my guts all the way through. And while all of that would certainly make sense, the pain is so squarely right where my gall bladder is that I can't help but believe it's that.

And I think all of this has lead to just a general feeling of....unhappiness tonight.

Robbie had a couple of bradys tonight. He was fussy before his bath, and then finally settled in just in time to get him up to bathe, of course. So after his bath, I let him sleep for 2 hours and just chill out. He was doing fine. I got him out of bed and was holding him. He seemed content, but his oxygen saturation was just sucking. She checked him very thoroughly and couldn't find the problem and finally I just put him back to bed.

Then I cried.

She turned his oxygen up just a bit (from 21% to 25%) and he was doing much better, but then he had a couple of heart rate drops that just didn't seem to relate to breathing. I'm assured this is fairly normal for a preemie, but it still sucks. And knowing that he does better without me than with me sucks, too. So I cried a little more.

On my way out of the NICU, I called David. (He'd left before bathtime to come home and work on Robbie's room a little.)

I'm going to put in for my leave at work. I feel guilty about it. I could probably work as much as 4 more weeks and earn more money to stay off longer when Robbie comes home. But I'm just not functioning well.

Add to all of this that ever since we moved to the step down unit, I've really only seen 1 familiar face so I don't feel like we're getting any continuity of care at all and I just can't take it.

We can't seem to get the Primary Nurse thing figured out, so the only primary anything he has is ME. And while I'm spending 6 hours a day there, it's just not enough. By the time I get off work, across the city through traffic, it's nearly 7pm. Bath is at 8:30. So I can hold him for an hour.. maybe two if I get there around 6:30. After his bath he just seems to need several hours to regroup. So that's it.

And it's not enough.

Right now, we've got enough money in the bank that I think we can manage 4 months off. If we can get a decent enough tax refund at the beginning of the year, we can probably swing another 2. Maybe even 3. My job will pay for our benefits for 6 months.

So I'm putting in for my leave ASAP. I don't know how much notice I need to give, but I'm aiming to finish out the week and then be off. No more than the end of the next week.

Now I just wish I had some saleable skill that I could do from home.

I saw some earrings made from dog hair on etsy the other day. I'm off to find my cats..


--Trish