Last night I spent the night at the hospital and let Carina get some well needed rest and a little time with her friends.  We don’t get much alone time together nowadays , but I really think it’s important to still live life while all of this is going on.  Even if it’s separately for the moment, I think it’s still important to remember that you’re a regular person – not just the parent of a very sick child.  Otherwise, it makes the situation that much more of a problem.  If you can’t get out, at least every now and again, and have a little bit of fun and get a good nights sleep then, in my opinion, you’re just compounding the problem.  You’re going to have a sick baby (still) and a burnt out Mom – which is definitely not good.  Anyhow, Penelope and I had a fun night – we watched movies and ate goldfish and gave each other ‘big hugs’ (she wraps her arms around your neck and pats you on the back when you say big hugs).

Then the morning came – we got ready and headed down to the cafeteria, which opens at 630 am (she was up at 545am).  BUT – on the weekends it doesn’t open ’til 8am!  Ahhh!  I needed coffee or an energy drink or something!  Too, if the little one doesn’t have some cheerios shortly after she wakes up she gets a little grumpy herself.  So, we just walked around for a while trying to kill some time.  Penelope was riding in her little wagon and was trailing her IV stand behind her.  One of the nurses had showed us a cool trick where you set the back end of the wagon on the front of the IV stand and you can tow both at the same time.  It works really well…unless you hit a bump…

We’re heading down the hall towards the elevator and the flooring switches from linoleum to carpet, not a problem though, I took it slow and deliberate, but that didn’t matter.  The IV stand sticks on the ledge that transitions linoleum to carpet – the wagon pops off of it and the IV stand comes crashing down forward, right at the baby!  I catch the stand about an inch above her head – but break some of the tubing in the process!!  At this point it’s IV fluids that are leaking everywhere.  I grab the baby, ditch the wagon in the hallway and run into the elevator to head back up to our unit (once again we’re on the second floor and our unit is on the third).  As I get out of the elevator it’s no longer leaking fluids, it’s leaking blood!!  I guess once the pressure of the fluids wasn’t pushing in that her heart decided to keep pumping blood out!  So we get to the nurses station and I’m pinching the tubing with my fingers, had a pool of blood in my hand and a trail of blood splatter behind me.  Holy Moly!  Now I’m kinda freaking out, but Penelope has no idea what’s going on and is just waving at everyone while nurses are scrambling to get towels to soak up the blood.

One nurse, Carol, who is totally awesome and was a HUGE help to us when Penelope was in really bad shape, jumps into action.  She starts dishing out orders, clamps the line and has our ‘actual’ nurse get some caps and switch things out.  At this point my heart is going a million miles an hour, I have blood all down the leg of my pants and all I’m thinking is that I really, really, really hope that she doesn’t have to get her IV replaced.  So far, in our hospital experience, they’re not too good getting an IV started for Penelope.  Fortunately, they were able to quickly flush it, start a new tube on the existing IV and all was well.  Big sigh of relief there!

All’s well that ends well, so we’re good to go.  As you can see from the pic, Penelope was none the wiser, all smiles, and is now sleeping. 

Just a quick update, have a great weekend!

Best

Aaron