Taking Shifts

I am currently home for the night and Frank is with Kellsey at the hospital. He brought the kids up for a little bit so they could see her and then I took them back home and got them to bed. We have a very busy week this week!

Today has been very long and frustrating. Kellsey is not really doing any better. She still has a fever, still looks like she doesn't feel well, and she has a spreading read spot on her stomach.

They've been using the pens to mark how much it's spread... the inside one was from last night, the next one was from this morning and the outer one was from early this afternoon. It's spread even more since then and is starting to wrap around her back. The on call surgeon thinks it's cellulitis, her ped isn't so sure. They're not agreeing on much today though... 

Her ped was ok with letting Kellsey come home tomorrow with a PICC line in and get her antibiotics at home. They're not really DOING much for her there beyond administering the antibiotics. We've done PICC lines before, we could take care of it easily. He also knows about Kennedy's surgery on Tuesday and realizes we can't be in 3 places at once. I was definitely ok with this plan! 

The Mr. on-call surgeon nixed the idea and said that if I needed to go to Denver for Kennedy's surgery and Frank needed to be with the other kids, then we could just leave Kellsey in the hospital alone. WHAT?! I said, "Ummm NO!" He proceeded to tell me that parents do it all the time. That's great. I'm not one of those parents. No child of mine is being left alone in the hospital, sorry! Especially because when we were there last week, one day post op, a nurse came in and offered Kellsey juice. To a girl who's allergic to fruit AND aspirates on thin liquids AND was NPO at the time. When I pointed to the huge red allergy band on her ankle and the memo about NPO on the wall and told her that she aspirates, she just said, "Oh. I didn't know." This was HER nurse. Why wasn't this info in her file? And if it was in her file, why did her nurse NOT know?! Yeah... I think it's a GREAT idea to leave my non-verbal 4 year old with allergies who nods yes to anything you ask her ALONE in the hospital. Good plan, doc! NOT! GRR!! After I freaked out a bit, Kellsey's awesome day nurse, who we also had last time and were SO happy to have again (this was NOT the one who offered her juice lol) assured me that Kellsey's ped is the one who is in charge in this case and he has the final say. She said that when she talked to him later, she would reiterate how important it was to us to go home, if he felt Kellsey was safe enough to do so. 

Anyway, they started Kellsey on Clindamycin and Gentamicin a little before noon today. Turns out she's allergic to one of those meds! She broke out in a rash all over her arms, legs and back... and probably her tummy too, but we couldn't tell since she still has a rash from the Betadine from surgery on Tuesday... turns out she's allergic to that, too! Since they gave the meds back to back, they weren't sure which one she was allergic to, but they guessed that the Clindamycin was the culprit because it is more commonly one that people are allergic to. SO they have now swapped that one out for Rocephin, but because of the allergic reaction it threw the ped's idea out the door for her going home tomorrow. Bummer. 

So, Frank came up and swapped places with me. Right after I left there was a shift change and this night nurse is about to give me a panic attack. She's undoing everything that's been done. NOT reading Kellsey's file AGAIN, and I'm not there. I know Frank had to be very firm with her and wrote down all the things that she CANNOT do with her in regards to allergies and skin sensitivities and brought up the fact that some of the nurses there do NOT communicate with each other and that could be VERY dangerous for the patient. He asked her if she knew she was allergic to fruit. She didn't. He also asked if she knew that she couldn't have liquids by mouth... as she was about to administer Tylenol. She didn't. If I know my husband, every nurse on that floor will know it now. HA! It's just frustrating. These are important things. I don't expect them to know her favorite color or even remember what size diaper she wears, but if they're coming in in the middle of the night to administer meds to a kid with a G-Tube, you might want to double check before giving those meds orally. Just sayin'. 

OK enough venting from me tonight. I am heading to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to hang out with my kiddies here and then my friend Carmen is coming over and we're going to take the kids to the hospital to see Kellsey really quick so they can get a group Halloween picture done in their costumes. Not sure we've ever had one with a hospital room background before. HA! I guess I'll have to think of a creative story to go with it. Then Carmen and I are taking the kids trick-or-treating in her neighborhood. 

Frank will be staying one more night with Kellsey and then coming home early Tuesday morning when Carmen will swap places with him and sit with Kellsey for a bit. Frank will get Kameron to school and then he and Keeghan will head back to the hospital so Carmen can go home, and they will hang out there for the rest of the morning. Then my friend Donna will be sitting with Kellsey for a bit in the afternoon. Meanwhile I'll be in Denver with Kennedy while she gets her ear tubes put in. I'm so thankful this worked out so we didn't have to reschedule! I was really stressed about this because I didn't know if I'd be able to get her back on the calendar before Frank deployed. Thank God for friends! THEN if Kennedy is feeling ok (which she should be, she usually bounces back really quickly from ear tubes) and Kellsey is STILL not home, I will go back to the hospital with her and Frank will come home with the kids. Hopefully by Tuesday afternoon though she'll be feeling much, much better!! 

If you got this far and listened to all my ranting, thanks! I needed to vent! Please keep praying for Kellsey. She has a ways to go yet!