Ward Life

Ward life is a bit like a wild life documentary when you first arrive.  You have been used to the peaceful surroundings of PICU and HDU (High dependency Unit), the one to one care and always having someone there.  Then when you first walk through those double doors there is no feeling of "tonight Matthew" it's more like you are waiting for David Attenborough to pop his head out from one of the side rooms and give you a run down of what's going on.

Ruaidhri had come on great he manged two day's in PICU and only half an hour in HDU when we got the call to say he was being taken to 5A, great wow this was amazing a huge step forward.  We got to the doors and buzzed to get in, gelled the hands as we walked down past the side rooms and reached the desk.  Where was everyone there was lots of nurses and Dr's about and kid's and the noise was enough to make your ears bleed to be honest.  We found Ruaidhri and a nurse had just been seeing to him.  There was a blue thin tube in his nose as well as his oxygen prongs.  What was this, the nurse that was with him had told us that she had just finished feeding him and would be back to tell us what was going on.  Feeding him I thought why does he need a feeding tube.  So we sat and waited for someone to come and see us.  As we sat and watched it was like a Zoo nurses going from bed to bed and trying to keep one of the older kids from escaping, he had the right idea I thought.  I never thought a ward would be like this.  Through all the chaos people seemed to know what they were doing and where they should be. 

Eventually a nurse came and told us what was going on and what the plan was.  She had explained that they had to give Ruaidhri a feeding tube for now as when they had tried to bottle feed him but he was getting to tired, and they needed him to have milk so it was better to do it this way for now, they would keep trying with a bottle.  So this was something new to get my head round. With that she said that the dietitian would be round to see us at some point that day, and Dr Knight would come speak to us.  She said that she would show us where everything was nappies, wipes, the bathroom and kitchen. Should we have any questions or couldn't find anything just to ask someone.  It all seemed to happen so fast, with that we were back at his cot being told someone would be back in half an hour to feed him.  So would this mean that I would get to hold our baby boy. I loved the thought of that but for now just sat at the side of his cot as I wasn't sure if I was allowed to lift him.  We watched everyone go about their business.  Their where families that you could tell had been here before and knew how it all worked and what you could and couldn't do.  For me this felt like the first day at school.  I was trying to take everything in.  The staff seemed lovely and tried to make me feel at ease, but it just seemed that we had gone from not being able to do anything with him to now being told we could do most things, change his nappy, hold him, pick him up.  They would still feed him for now though.  Feeding time was here again and she picked the tube up and I watched as she poured the milk into a syringe( or bolus) and watched it slowly go down.  This seemed mad.  We hadn't been warned about this, so why was it happening.  It was strange as I envied the parents that looked at home and just got on with what they had to do.

I was unsure of why we would meet with a dietitian as feeding had never seemed to be an issue that was bought up.  He was in for his heart so why would him taking milk be a problem. Hmmmmm Lee said we were to meet with the Cardiac nurse later that afternoon and she would be able to explain more to us. 

For now though I just sat at looked at him.  Lee seemed happy to go and get nappies and change him, the wires didn't seem to phase him at all he just got on with it.  Me on the other hand was too scared to touch him in case he broke, or broke more.  I was still trying to take everything in our new surroundings and now more new information. Surely there couldn't be any more to come.  I was starting to feel agitated as again on a new ward everything had changed and so it seemed had the plan.  Surely someone could have warned us about what to expect.

The dietitian came that afternoon and explained to us why he was being tube fed and how this was normal for babies who had just had surgery (well if it was that normal why had we not been told of this) and most of the time it was just a short term measure until they gained weight.  She explained that he would have to be at a certain weight and be able to take a certain amount of milk before we could even think about taking home home.  Right so there was my theory out of the window that once he had healed we would say bye and pop off home. So would this take a while? how short was short term? what was the weight? what was the volume of milk? and why are we not doing it all now? Is what was going round in my head.

Dr Knight came to see us and told us that his saturation levels were good and told us that his Sat's were at 86/87 per cent which for him was good and acceptable for a heart baby, and as long as he managed to keep them there all was a good sign for going home.  So it would seem it would all come down to numbers.

Would us getting home only depend on him hitting the right numbers.???? This is certainly what I was starting to think.

The nurse came and told us that if we had any clothes for him that he would be able to wear them.  This was great as odd as this may be we had never seen our baby boy in clothes yet, he had only been in his nappy, its something that you take for granted, oooh I was bursting at the seems at the thought of being able to put a vest on him.  That afternoon I shuffled back to our room as fast as I could and grabbed some vest's and with a big smile I looked forward to him wearing them.  Lee put the first one on him as I was still weary about touching him in case one of his wires came off or his oxygen prongs slipped down.  When Lee put his vest on he handed him to me and my first thought was what am I  meant to do with him.  As much as i wanted to hold him I was so scared of hurting him or making him feel uncomfortable that it was like being a new mum for the first time all over again, being nervous and scared in case something feel off.

Its a strange to feeling to have that now that the worst bit had been done and he now had his shunt, the ward step I thought would be an easy one.  But at the moment it was stressing me out more than the surgery, people kept throwing more information my way, telling me things that I wasn't prepared for.  Why had no-one warned us of any of this.  In Lee's eyes it was all progress and great steps for me it was like swimming in the dark in the sea, I had no idea which way I was going or what was ahead of me.

That afternoon we had our first picture taken of the three of us, although it was missing Poppy, it felt like the only normal thing that had happened that day.  I couldn't wait for her to come through now and meet her brother for the first time even though he was now two weeks old.  She wouldn't matter she would love him regardless.