Good Samaritan

 Lucy and I ventured out for our second solo trip.  It was just a quick run to Target to pick up some things I needed for dinner.  Lucy was off her feeds and I knew she could manage a half hour off oxygen (more on that later) so it was just Lucy in her car seat, me and my purse.  We got to target and I scurried around picking up the few things we needed, still very nervous to take her out and about.  We get through check out and she is still taking in the sights.  At the car, I placed my purse on top of the car and got Lucy out of the stroller and into the car, then I packed up the stroller in the trunk and hopped into the car to hurry home.  Yep, you guessed it.  I pull into our condo parking spot and my purse is not anywhere in the car.  I had driven off with it still on top of the car.  Freaking out, I turn around hoping that it is possibly still laying on the pavement close to where I parked.  No luck.  I must have had a look of panic on my face because as I walked into Target and up to the service desk, the lady  looks at me and says "Elisabeth Shannon?"  In which I respond, "yes!  Did someone turn in my purse?"  Low and behold, there it was and I breathed a sigh of relief.

So thank you to the kind person that found my purse and took it to the service counter.  The time, energy and money you saved me along with what would have been many tears is much appreciated.

We had the Early Intervention therapists to our house on Friday.  The developmental therapist said there were some physical delays and she would refer a physical therapist to come out to evaluate Lucy.  The speech therapist saw over a thirty percent delay, but said that for Lucy to be eligible she would need a delay in two areas.  We will wait to see if the physical therapist can see a thirty percent delay as well.  Lucy is really close to sitting so we are pretty excited, but maybe we should hold off practicing until the PT can see her.  Yeah right! 

 

If she ends up not being eligible, we will look into a private speech therapist, because I am having no luck with dips, the bottle or a sippy cup!  I definitely could use any help if we want that tube off any time soon.  We have gone up on bolus feeds, which is exciting.  She is up to four a day, then back to continuous feeds overnight.  In a week we will increase to five a day.  Once she is tolerating these, we will look to increase the volume and decrease the time.  Lucy takes her feeds over an hour and we give them every three hours.  It is nice to have her unhooked for two hours.  As we decrease the time, she will be off the machine even longer.

The oxygen has officially defeated me.  I have to admit I've cried a couple times in the last week.  As of my last post we were doing six hour tests off oxygen and everything seemed to be on track.  Last Thursday our home nurse came and she told me while we are doing tests to remove the cannula as it blocks her nasal passage.  When removed it can help to improve her numbers.  Unfortunately it seemed to do the opposite.  This past weekend I did two tests with the cannula off (it was nice to see more of her face).  After two hours, I checked her saturation, she was at 65.  I freaked out!  I watched the pulse oximeter for another five minutes and it didn't go higher than 70.  I immediately put her back on oxygen and didn't continue with the test.  This happened again at the next test, we have decided to give her a break.  We adjusted her oxygen to a little higher than one sixteenth of a liter.  We will watch to see if her saturation gradually increase, then we will think about trying again.

We see Lucy's cardiologist this week, so we will discuss our next steps.

Lucy is always pulling at the cords on her face, so I gave her an extra NG tube to play with.  It seemed to do the trick.  She was occupied for a full ten minutes.