Owen had surgery on Monday. He had a few different procedures at the same time to limit the amount of time he goes under anesthesia. Needless to say, we spend a couple of days in the hospital with him and he came home yesterday around 2:30 pm. I initially thought he would only stay one night, however, after seeing the feeding tube site on the first day, I realized that nurses or not, we were not ready to go home until we all felt more comfortable with it. The other surgery (testicles etc...) left him with many small incisions, but only really require some bacitracin and being left alone. Those I can handle. The feeding tube site is much better now and I won't go into details.
I spent Tuesday during the day, in the hospital attempting to make sure we had all our ducks in a row with respect to nursing, diet, orders for the feeding tube, equipment that was to be delivered for the feedings and oxygen monitoring during the feeds. I spoke to no less than 10 people, who all had it covered. I spoke to the nursing team. Everyone had it covered. Appointments were set up for Wednesday so Nick would be able to get Owen home mid after noon, the equipment was to be delivered at 4pm, the nurses were coming around the same time to do paperwork and then learn the equipment and it was all going to run smoothly.
Yeah right.
I am pretty sure my blood pressure must have been through the roof last night. Discharge went smoothly for the most part. There was the small issue of Nick leaving the hospital without orders for the nurses with respect to the feeding tube, but if that was all that was going to go wrong, I could handle that. I called, things were faxed and everyone knew what the plan was. (Mind you, at 9pm last night, when unpacking the hospital bags, I found the orders folded up and placed in the bag by my husband, but I digress.)
The nurses came and started paperwork with Nick. I come home a little early so we can all learn the pump together. At this time, its the witching hour for the babies. Everyone is crying and Soledad, the babysitter is trying to keep them busy. Gavin is jumping on furniture, so I am alternating between attempting to sternly (but nicely- there are people watching) tell Gavin to stop jumping on my furniture through clenched teeth, while running into the living room to kiss babies from time to time, because they see I have walked in the door and no one is happy that they are not getting my attention (yes, life does revolve around mommy at this age) and giving as much information as I can to the nurses, who have turned my kitchen into nurse central.
This goes on for a while. Dinner is not going to happen unless I order something. At some point, Soledad has to go home. Owen can't sit in the kitchen because he needs to be laying down. So I pace the rooms, answering questions, calling for chinese and smiling at babies and attempting to feed them, while looking for infant tylenol so the nurses can write down all the doses. Apparently, this is all very technical and an order has to be written for everything they do for Owen, including give tylenol.
In the interim, it dawns on us, that the equipment is around 2 1/2 hours late. Nick makes some calls and "Dwayne" (name has been changed to protect his job, because it's rough out there right now and I would not want to be the cause of him getting fired, although he should be) calls to tell me he will be there in 30 minutes, no more. That was at 6:09 pm. At 6:48, Dwayne has not arrived. At 7:10 Dwayne has not arrived. I call Dwayne because there are 3 nurses in my home waiting to be trained on the equipment. The house feels very full. And I like all of the nurses very very much. Its just busy and the least relaxing thing on earth. Dwayne answers his phone and I pretty much yell at him. He is more than 3 hours late...I have a nursing staff waiting for his arrival...He said a half hour, no later...etc. He says he is around the corner. Great.
The next thing that happens is that I hear yelling out on the street. I am on the phone with the feeding therapist, because we have a new one and we need to schedule for the following week, so I was multi-tasking, on top of my multi-tasking. So I hear the yelling and sure enough, Dwayne has pulled up on my one way street and due to the snow banks, just cannot figure out where to put his van. Dwayne. Park. It. Anywhere. You. Can. Find. A. Spot. EVEN IF ITS UP THE F#$*ing BLOCK!!!!!! The man in the van behind him is screaming as many expilitives as I can think of already because he can't get by him. I run to find Nick, who apparently has already went out there due to the yelling.
Eventually Dwayne finds a dug out "area" to shove his van. It's not a parking spot, or else I would have referred to it that way. Nope, its an area. He brings the boxes inside. I hear honking. Rapid, feverish honking. I tell Dwayne that I think his van is blocking traffic. He stares at me stupidly. (I actually think he thinks I am the stupid one! This just amuses me.)
I unpack the boxes and expect Dwayne, even through the honking, to show us how to use the stuff, because that's what he is supposed to do. On more than one occassion, Dwayne picks up the feeding pump and says, "this is not a feeding pump." To which the nurses say, "Yes it is." So much for Dwayne educating us. Honking continues. Dwayne unpacks our suction machine. WHAT SUCTION MACHINE???? WE DO NOT NEED A SUCTION MACHINE!!! We need a pulse-oximeter, which measures Owens oxygen saturation through his pulse. I know it's difficult, but as someone who is supposed to deliver these products and "EDUCATE" the people who are receiving these items, you would think Dwayne would know what that is. He doesn't and there isn't one to be found.
Honking continues. Nick tells Dwayne, that he must move the van, there is a woman outside having a coniption. Dwayne goes outside. The line down our street is 6-8 cars long. Dwayne gets in the van and IT IS STUCK in the snow (Oh Dwayne, this would because you failed to park your van and chose to instead, shove it in an "area".) A few angered drivers get out and help Dwayne get his van moving. He parks and comes back inside and wants me to sign off on the equipment so he can "get going". I can't do that Dwayne. I am a lawyer. What kind of sense would it make for me to go and sign things that allow you to leave, when I have the wrong equipment. Hey, I have an idea. Dwayne, if you are supposed to deliver things at 4PM, when your company is open and these things can be addressed and recified, THEN DO IT. So I refuse to sign and Dwayne leaves anyway.
Why don't I want to get this man fired, you wonder? Me too. Me too. Anyway, it now takes the nurses another 45 minutes to get the pump working and only because its a new type of pump that they have not used often. I am glad they are there and also worried about what that means for Owen on his first night home with it, without oxygen monitoring.
But in the end, the pump works, the nurses leave (except the one staying the night), the house settles and I finally sit down with my cold chinese food at 9pm for dinner.
The End (of our random Wednesday night).
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