Quite the scare

Skyler just gave us a major scare. We had to give her the oral heart medication on an empty stomach, and she took that just fine. We had taken her out of the bed so Ronnie could hold her and feed her comfortably. Then she had to take some potassium orally since the Lasix lowers her levels. That was a battle – we tried to mix it in her bottle but she was smarter than that, so we just had to force it in her mouth with a syringe. Then she was not happy and started dry-heaving. Luckily most of the potassium stuff stayed down. Then the nurse took her blood pressure, and that’s when things got scary. The first reading was something like 20/10. The nurse figured it was a messed up reading so she took another. It was only about 30/20. She took another – 50/30. I don’t know a ton about blood pressures but do know these numbers were way too low! So far those numbers were less than half what she should be running. The nurse called for a resident to come in while she took another blood pressure from her leg this time (the first ones were from her arms). The resident came in when the next reading came up, and it was 150/110. Of course that number is way too high! She kept taking it and it started to come down, and after only minutes, was back around 120/80, which is much closer to where she is supposed to be. The surgeon happened to come by (not sure if he was called due to the issue or if he just happened to be making rounds), and the nurse told him what just happened. He is a very calm person from what I’ve been gathering, and he said that can happen as we experiment with her medicine doses, plus since we had moved her out of her bed and she got upset, it just made things go haywire. He said she should be fine. Relieving to hear from him, because we and the nurse were really freaked out! Needless to say, after all that, she was exhausted and fell asleep before we could even try to feed her the actual formula. I really hope that doesn’t happen again – that was one of the scariest moments yet!

I need to make a correction on here. Many people have commented at how “strong” I’ve been as a mother through all this. But to be honest, I haven’t been the strong one – Ronnie has! He is the one that braves it to hold her and feed her. He’s the one to help comfort and restrain her during her breathing treatments. He’s been the one to stay by her side when I have taken multiple breaks. I can’t hardly stand when they are messing with her, whether it’s giving her shots of medicine or doing a breathing treatment. I have to do something else to distract myself or get out of the room. Ronnie is always by her side, helping as needed, without any hesitation or complaints. I’m so glad he’s here. I don’t know how I could have made it through this without him!