Jasmine Stalker-Firth

I spoke to my mate Wayne the other day who made me laugh for hours. He said that he hadn’t been reading the blog lately because Jasmine seemed to be so much better. Previously, when lots of terrible things happened, he was riveted and read the blog every morning but now it’s all a bit dull so he has gone elsewhere on the web to get his kicks.

Neil came home a bit cross-eyed this morning with Jasmine. Jasmine was smiling happily. Neil hadn’t had much sleep at all in the night but was glad he practised the alarms. Jasmine had been sick a couple of times this morning so he had spent since 6am cleaning up her sick and changing the cot.

I had spent the morning at home sorting out our bedroom and bathroom. We can fit in the dialysis machine and all of the dialysate and hand washing scrub stuff and everything we need in both places so that our life is easy. So after lunch we were all ready to try out my organisation. as we were scheduled to change Jasmine’s PD dressing. This involves several trips to and from the bathroom to the bedroom for handwashing, easy access to various bits of sterile swaps, antiseptic and what have you, and somewhere clean and flat to put Jasmine. It went really well. Neil did the dressing and said it was a bit easier at home, since we have control over where to put things. The only problem is where to keep the paper towels. We think we may have to screw our new paper dispenser to the wall and make our bathroom look like a public convenience.

I am staying at the hospital tonight so we will take Jasmine back in a while. Indiana Jones is on the telly so I can watch that while Jasmine snoozes and Neil can organise the dinner, though I am bit bored of pizza.

We (Neil, Jasmine, and I) went shopping today and bought a new buggy and baby bath from Argos. We set the new buggy up in Argos and put the bath in it and pushed it back to the hospital. Jasmine was in the ward buggy watching us as we fiddled about with wheels and raincovers. It was a lovely sunny day so we went for coffees in the nearby cafe and watched the world go by and lots of people stopped to tell us how gorgeous they find Jasmine.

Tonight Neil is staying at the hospital so we had pizza and salad for dinner again as it was my turn to go for takeaway to eat during Match of The Day. I gave him training on our new food pump, which meant that I pumped water all over Jasmine’s cubicle and Neil laughed at a lot at my training techniques. We eventually got the pump working and hooked up to Jasmine with nice fresh milk for the night.

Since I was on fire with my training, before I left I gave Neil more information about the alarms on the machine. Generally if an alarm goes off you check the lines that they aren’t clamped or kinked and then you give Jasmine a gentle shake or turn her on her side. The alarms normally stop and the machine carries on dialysing Jasmine. Neil then ordered me home because it was getting late and my explanations weren’t fantastic and I had to get the baby bath back.

Ruth got trained on how to use the feed pump today. Jasmine will be fed overnight, so should sleep well. Her pump can be put in a backpack when we go out and about. It is all very well designed. Ruth was trying out the pump with orange juice, so that she could see where the juice was in the lines.

We are getting faster at doing all the tasks required. Ruth disconnected Jasmine, and set her machine up. I changed her PD dressing and connected her in the evening. Jasmine’s blood pressure is fairly stable at the moment, and she is putting on weight, so things are looking good at the moment.

Last week we got our food pump deliveries. Last night we brought home the dialysis machine in a big black suitcase and today we had all our dialysate and other medical supplies delivered. We have everything we need to care for Jasmine for two weeks. It is in our living room at the moment. We just need to find places to put it and organise ourselves.

Today Jasmine and I are at home and Neil is at work. Jasmine is currently snoozing in her cot and I am considering a nap myself as I am so tired after being overexcited at the prospect of Jasmine coming home. If all goes well we should be able to bring her home next week. I can’t believe it and start to cry everytime I think about it.

Jasmine has realised that her hand is connected to her arm and keeps staring at it and going cross-eyed. She also supports her own head for extended periods of time and leans back when she is in my arms so that she can stretch and have a good look around (and make me look like I don’t know how to hold her properly). Now when she smiles she looks directly at me which is more polite than that smiling to herself routine that she used to do.