Day Seven

It's 5:27 in the AM and I think I'm too awake to go back to sleep, so I thought I would stick an update in for you early risers. Last night was probably the worst one so far. Kelby's mouth seems to keep getting a little worse each day, but last night it seems like it got worse for her all of a sudden. She's having the same trouble, with having to cough up the same amount of gunk, but there seems to be more blood in it now. It's dark, so I don't know if it's coming from sores that have developed inside her mouth, or if is just her throat getting worse. Anyway, she doesn't really like to be helped, and fights it every step of the way even though she needs it. It's difficult to have my little girl push me away and hit me and pinch me while I try to get her to somehow understand that I'm only trying to help her so she'll feel better. She's just too little to get it though. I hope that she forgets all of this fast. I'm pretty sure she doesn't really hate me as much as she acts like it because sometimes, when she's on the edge of sleep and the morphine has just been pushed, I can ask her for a kiss and she'll raise her little head and plant on on my cheek then flop back down. Last night she was so frantic that between coughs and hitting me while I tried to get some of the goo from her mouth, she was also yanking at the dressing that holds her central line in. Since this new type of dressing change was invented by some rocket scientist who probably never spent the night with a two year old, it's not really secured very well so she could pull it out quite easily if she got a good hold of it. It made her even more mad when I kept pulling her hands away from it. She was very upset and did that once around 2:00 this morning and then finally calmed down, and then frantically did it again just a little bit ago. At that point it was quite obvious that her mouth or throat was hurting much more, so I went ahead and had them push a little extra morphine, and then increase her hourly morphine drip that streams to her constantly. That seemed to do the trick because I rocked her and she fell sound asleep and then I laid her back in bed and she went right down to the pillow. Hopefully that keeps her more comfortable now. The nurse also added some blow-by damp oxygen (you called that one huh Dave?) which is supposed to help loosen the phlem a little bit. Take the phlem from the worst head cold you've ever had and multiply it by 5 and that is the junk Kelby is trying to clear from her throat. If she's lucky/blessed she'll only have to deal with this another day or two before it turns around, but it could also go another week. Anyway, it's a bit depressing but it's what is happening. She's a tough little cookie though so when she finally does hit the bottom and bounce, hopefully she'll bounce fast and high. On a lighter note, while Shawna, Tegan, and I were at home, I was nice enough :) to rip a little video of when Kelby and Tegan met here in the hospital last week. As an added bonus I also made one of Tegan's first bath, which was also here at the hospital, that will be available at http://www.mikrowiz.com/tegan perhaps later today. Look for the one of Kelby & Tegan available now in the multimedia section.