Neil disconnected Jasmine’s machine this morning before going off to work and after jumping out of the way when Jasmine threw up all of her feed. She was not herself all day – not taking her feeds as she normally does and was a bit grizzly – they are taking a sample this evening to see if she is beginning an infection.
Jasmine is on 13 hours of dialysis at the moment as she is retaining too much fluid which is pushing up her blood pressure. She is also having a last bag fill of 60mls. The idea behind a last bag fill is that some fluid is left in the peritoneum during the day and continues dialysing until she is plugged back into the machine. The problem with small babies is that they often absorb the fluid and don’t give it back. Everyone is tinkering with different solutions in order to see what works best for Jasmine.
Lunchtime we went down to Costa for our usual paninis and lattes and Jasmine watched the world go by until she fell asleep. She sits on my lap and looks like a little old granny wise to the ways of the world, having seen it all before. Then this afternoon she had her first lot of vaccinations and only cried for a short time. She had some sugary syrup to suck on as this has been proven to distract babies from the pain of injections. She wasn’t interested in her dummy and so she sucked it from my finger.
By staying on the ward, I had the chance to practice the things I have learnt so far and was able to:
- change Jasmine’s PD dressing
- draw up medicines
- do observations
- set up the PD machine
- connect Jasmine to her machine
We also enjoyed bathtime this morning before getting on with the day, and lots of feeds. Today gave me some idea of how life will be when we get home – except of course, I won’t be surrounded by lots of lovely nurses who support me in a million different ways every minute of every day.
Jasmine caused a stir on the ward today by wearing her pretty new dress teamed controversially with her Boro slippers. Everyone loved the dress but as the ward has Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham supporters to name but a few, the slippers weren’t popular with everyone. Jasmine was very cool about it all and put her head back to stare at the lights on the corridor ceiling.
I think there’s enough Middlesbrough supporters in the world without encouraging more 😉