He leaned on the foot of the crib, watching Julianna while he talked to me, just as he has for the last…well, I think it’s six days now (it’s all running together)… explaining why he had ordered the nurses to slow the process of weaning Julianna off dobutamine, and thus keep us in the ICU…
Read MoreAll articles filed in hospitals
Almost There
When I came in this morning, the flow-pap was gone. After bath this morning, my baby girl’s cheeks are kissable again– IOW, not covered with tape and second skin and tubing. She has figured out that if she fingers her IV tubes and starts tugging, Mommy will pay lots of attention to her. Yee-haw. (Remember that…
Read MoreQuickly
Yesterday, Julianna continued to scream at me all afternoon, refusing to sleep even though her little eyes kept rolling up into her head with exhaustion. (The nurses think it may be withdrawal from the monster doses of sedatives she was on.) It was annoying, but nonetheless, good news, because she had the energy to sit…
Read MoreLooking Up…tentatively
Julianna spent the entire morning screaming. Those who have ever heard her get mad at her brother know the sound I’m talking about. She did not take a break from the time I got here until after 1p.m., except for ten minutes when I think she actually slept. Just one breath after another, AAAAEEEEHH! It…
Read MoreThe Hospital Blues
My van smells like the hospital, my clothes do too, Haven’t slept with my hubby in what seems a week or two, Been sittin’ in the same chair so long, I think my butt’s turnin’ blue Twiddlin’ my thumbs and singin’ the hospital blues. My baby’s bored from sittin’ all day in the P-ICU, My…
Read MoreSkewered on my own eloquence
Three weeks ago (has it been so long already?), I gave a retreat presentation on music and spirituality. During it, I spoke of music as a way to help us express the whole range of human emotion—both positive and negative—in a prayerful way. The example I used was “Hold Me, Jesus,” by Rich Mullins. It’s…
Read MoreThe hospital is in E flat major
It’s odd that I don’t write much about music, considering that my degrees are in music and that music has been the focus of all my education, and the only activity in which I participated significantly, ever. Music defined my entire existence for about 7 years after high school. I always had a good sense of…
Read MoreFriday morning update
Well, we have the tube out of Julianna’s throat. And while he was at it, Dr. Burny also removed the NG tube (nasal-gastric) and the feeding tube, knowing that as soon as she wakes up, she’ll be ripping them out anyway. 🙂 Her numbers really didn’t justify coming off the ventilator, not quite anyway. But…
Read MoreDaily Update…
It turns out that croup is secondary. Julianna has pneumonia. But they tell us that this is a matter for concern, but nothing to lose sleep over. Julianna is a medication hog. They have upped the Versed twice, added a regular infusion of Fentanyl, and topped it of with a drug I can barely spell,…
Read MorePICU, how I have missed thee…or not
Overnight, Julianna lost her IV and did not sleep. By this morning, she was just about exhausted. I realize now how much I overuse that word. Exhausted…all energy gone, not in the sense that we use it, meaning “I want a nap,” but in the sense that she is out of gas; she physically cannot…
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Kathleen M. Basi 