ChloeWatts.com

Sunday, Jan 3, 2010

January 4th, 2010 Posted in Daily News Post

It was Ivey Day!!! After lots of preparation by Dana, she was able to bring Ivey for a visit. She waited outside Chloe’s door because Dr. Shih was in the room and she didn’t want to overwhelm him. Then she decided to announce “Chloe’s anti-depressant is here” and she pranced in with Ivey. Dr. S didn’t know what to think until he saw Chloe LIGHT UP!! Then he said “all right!” So for 45 minutes Ivey visited Chloe and it was a great reunion. She didn’t see Chloe at first as she had to scope out the room, look out the window and visit everyone. Then Dana got her on the bed and Ivey behaved just as a good therapy dog should. When I arrived at the hospital after my Financial Peace University Preview, I asked Chloe if she liked the visit. There was not doubt! It was the bright spot in this entire stay.

Sandy brought Ivey home and she reported that Ivey seemed a lot calmer now that she has visited her family. She has been one stressed out dog and then add the flea attack she went through and she was in the Mess Category of the rest of the family.

After getting Ivey home and situated it was Colin’s turn to go out with Sandy. They dropped the bottle return and then off to Target so he could use his Target Gift Card.

Dana had quite the dream last night as she lay with Chloe in the bed. By the way, Chloe’s heart rate retreated to its lowest point, 108 while they lay together. So, back to the dream. Dana saw a yellow monarch butterfly come and land on Chloe’s trach. It slowly flexed its wings and breathed air into the trach. Then two blue butterflies and one red butterfly arrived. They arrived to wake up her vocal cords by the wing movements… which replicate the vocal cords. Like she said, it’s much more creative than her usual dreams.

During the early morning hours Dana and Chloe fell asleep together. A visitor showed up but didn’t wake them and the nurse followed suit. I guess the recognized a good thing was happening. The bond Chloe and Dana has is something to behold.

An addition to last night’s scene was the presence of leg wraps for Chloe. Her blood pressure has been an issue when we get her up or she exerts herself. These seem to have corrected that problem as we had her sitting up for over 5 minutes. She did very well although I thought her balance was a bit more wonkey than usual. She was turning her head around to give me the stinkeye when I would say something dumb.

Last night she gave Dana a scare when she reported chest pains. The nurse quickly deduced it was the angle Chloe was laying and that it was more of a heartburn feeling. They repositioned her and everything seemed to be alright.

We seem to have the respiratory questions answered. There were too many different answers from too many “experts” that we needed to nail someone down to an answer that made sense. When you go too deep with suction it can do damage.

Sandy has the day off after handling the ugly shift two nights in a row. That is enough to fry anyone. Especially when we know we have to be half awake to watch what is being done with Chloe overnight and to be her voice if something is going wrong. If I hadn’t been through the hospital stuff so many times and seen so many mistakes made during those times, I’d probably have a hard time understanding why 24/7 is so important when you have a loved one in the hospital. It’s bad enough when it’s an adult, but a voiceless child makes it a no brainer for me.

Chloe came up with a perfect Chloeism tonight. She emailed Grandma that, “I still have the throbbing urge to eat!” Can anyone out there imagine laying in bed for a month and not being able to eat anything, not being able to say anything, not being able to walk anyplace, nor being able to write??? I can’t.

We are looking forward to our Tuesday meeting. It’s close to the need for a new Trach We were expected to do the second one, however, we have not even had the trach baby here to practice on and we’re yet to meet our new RT trainer. I’m going to ask to have the doctor there again for trach #2. Tonight’s RT, Melissa, gets kudos from all of us.

It was nice seeing everyone at the potluck today. Sorry I’m not a good communicator verbally lately but this is my best source of information since my brain doesn’t need to respond too quickly.

Be Well,
Ron