Keep Praying

I ran home b/c I had to get out of the hospital for a bit, and I needed a bubble bath and a couple hours sleep. Things haven't been going well there. Mackenzie is still running a low-grade fever, and they restarted her on amoxicillin last night (she had just finished it Friday); today they were discussing changing to something stronger. She is extremely agitated and her pain does not seem to be well-controlled. Initially the plan was to keep her one night, but she is no where close to being ready to come home today. She has had very little rest since surgery, and even when we finally get her to close her eyes, she still is frequently flailing her arms/legs, and thrashing her head from side to side, in her sleep. They've had her on tylenol with codeine (which seems useless) and morphine, which we wonder if she's having hallucinations or some other reaction to...they gave her a BIG dose this afternoon, and she was STILL awake and agitated. They've also tried Benadryl, which at 4:00 a.m., seemed to finally do the trick and she did rest for a while (which meant mommy finally, after 23.5 hours up, got to close her eyes for a while), but then later this morning, the Benadryl didn't help at all. I finally lost it and started crying this afternoon, b/c I am so tired of seeing her be SO uncomfortable. And of course, every time they call Peds, a new pediatric resident or attending comes...and with every doc, new ideas about what to do. When I left, she was in her swing, awake, thrashing around, refusing to eat, and had already had Benadryl and 1 mg of IV morhpine. The nurse said, "Well, we can't give her any more meds, I don't know what to do for her." Um...this is when you call the doctor and tell them the meds AREN'T WORKING!!! All night, her heart rate alarm kept sounding b/c her heartrate would be 200-210, and then she'd also breathe too fast so that alarm would sound, and then she'd get all worked up and desat (oxygen level would go down to 75-90%), so that alarm would sound...then she'd pull off her leads b/c she'd get so worked up...it was really a bad night. And the afternoon wasn't going much better.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Anthony's running 102 fever, so Darrell will be staying home with him. Makayla, ironically, the "drama queen," has been dealing totally fine with mama being gone!! Go figure! (Though she certainly was happy when I showed up this afternoon and she got some of her fave milk!! :))

Anyway, I'll be heading back for another night in a little bit. Hoping it goes better...hoping they've figured out some drug that will work for her, while I've been gone (I kept suggesting Ativan - I know they used that in the NICU for babies for agitation). Keep the prayers coming!! If tonight goes well and she starts eating better, hopefully we'll get to come home tomorrow.