I wrote this yesterday, but forgot to post it. So imagine that you are reading it on Monday.
On Saturday, G was sent to ICU isolation because of a suspected cold. The virus panel came back negative, but we got about 24 hours in a nice private room.
Yesterday, we were discharged from the ICU and sent up to the cardiac ward. They were waiting for normal kidney function and a couple of bloodless bowel movements. General surgery said that I could breastfeed. Originally, we thought G would be bottle fed, but the surgeon said we could feed ad lib. G was back to himself within a few hours of getting back on the breast. He is smiling and playing, and even gave me a kiss this morning.
The ward is much quieter than the ICU. We have a large private room, and there is a bed for me to sleep on. One nurse covers several patients, so a lot of the care is left up to us. It suits us quite well. The baby is a happy camper, although he has reverted to old habits like comfort nursing.
He isn't hooked up to much any more. He dislodged his central line (which was stitched in place), so it was removed. While it was being taken out, he kicked so much that his foot IV became unusable, so it was removed as well. He just has one IV site on his hand, three telemetry wires on his chest to measure breathing and heart rhythm, and an oxygen saturation probe on his toe.
Pro tip: if your baby ever needs blood tests or similar procedures done, leave it to the pros. It is tempting to try to comfort the baby during the test. This is a mistake. G started seeing us as the bad guys who were hurting him. It was better for us to leave the room and rush in as soon as the test was finished to comfort him. Hearing him screaming in pain was terrible, but seeing him reject me was worse. We are back to normal now, but he wasn't too happy with mom and dad for a while.
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