Life in progress

Daily Archives: December 30, 2018


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Update on Alex #2

I woke up from nine hours of sleep this morning and called the hospital before I got out of bed. The nurse I spoke to was a nice lady named Heather who introduced herself as someone who used to work at Alex’s school, so she knows a bit of sign language.

She told me he had a good night and was up early, out of bed, and following his nurse (the one on shift from last night) around in the corridors. He got tired of his IV, probably when another IV pole with his feeding pump was added to the mix, so he unhooked the IV. They left it off.

When Heather came in at 7:00, he took one look at her and knowing she had the ability to tell him off in ASL, he went back to bed.

“That was a couple of hours ago though,” she told me. “Now he’s following me around.”

He was doing okay, so I decided to have a shower and take my time getting to the hospital. Only to immediately be told to go home when I got there … by Alex. I sent this text to my best friend, John:

At the hospital waiting to see the doctor. Alex wants me to go home. I’m cramping his style. Sitting alone in his room while he hangs out with the nurses.

To which John replied:

I can sympathize. It’s hard to woo a nurse with your mom around.

So he’s obviously feeling better. But they wanted to keep him one more night for observation. His oxygen levels are still very low when he’s laying down, his heart rate is still through the roof, and he’s still working to breathe.

Hopefully he’ll be home tomorrow and all the heart issues will have arisen from the combination of the pneumonia and the extra drugs. And hopefully the antibiotics will work their miracle.

Thank you again for all your awesome well-wishes. I appreciate each and every one.


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Update on Alex

Before I go to bed, I want to leave a quick update.

First, thanks so much to everyone who left their prayers and positive wishes for us. It seems something got through.

I’ll back up a bit first, though. After I wrote my last post, my eldest son volunteered to go to the hospital for me and watch over his brother, so I did get a bit more sleep before I went.

Whilst there, I asked about Alex’s regular heart meds–I realized he was past due for them. The nurse said she thought she’d read that they were on hold … I told her he needed them every day, so she agreed to go and double check.

About five minutes later she came back with his heart meds. But. Her first question for me was, does he get fifteen mils or seven and a half mils?

The prescription is 15mg twice per day, and being liquid, it’s mixed as 2mg/ml, so he gets 7.5ml twice per day.

The doctor who’d written the order had it backwards. Had she not looked at the bottle and just read the doctor’s orders, she’d have overdosed him the medication that slows his heart rate by double.

Thank goodness for eagle-eyed nurses.

And again, thank you for your well-wishes. He might be out of the hospital tomorrow, or if not, Monday.

I left his signing dictionary at the hospital, so if they’re really stuck, they can look it up.

Oh, and he still hadn’t slept when I got there. He stood and looked out the window all afternoon–for about six hours–watching for me to arrive. When I left tonight, he’d been up for 38 hours aside from a one-hour nap. I hope he’s sleeping now.