Since my last post, things have been a bit trying. Clara continued to be awake more hours of the day, and I began requesting less and less pain medication - to see if she was actually getting better.
Unfortunately, Monday night consisted of Clara being at the breast CONSTANTLY. Literally. Constantly. I had to bring her into the bed with me - which was particularly concerning because she had had a few nights in a row of sleeping in her crib without ANY problem. At some point in the early morning hours, I finally asked the nurse to bring her some dilaudid. It was the first time Clara slept (for 30 minutes) without being at the breast. But, Dilaudid supposedly has a sedative affect, and since her relief was so short lived, I assumed it only sedated her but didn't find the true source of the problem.
Tuesday day was incredibly difficult as she was just so tired yet not sleeping for more than 20 minutes at a time. I found myself carrying Clara in her sling to go for a walk around the unit over and over again throughout the day. She was cuddled up in the cradle position as I have found to be most comfortable for her lately. Fortunately, the nurses cooing over her and the fish tank and the lights and sounds of the unit were a great distraction for her. She even was able to fall asleep in it for a little while.
I knew something was wrong. But, normally, I have some sort of feeling that some particular thing is wrong. But for the first time, I didn't have any idea. I had lots of worries but none of them seemed to really fit. Her pain even seemed to be going away. She has had mouth sores that were actually gone; so, I thought her throat pain was minimal at the worst. At around 5 pm, I finally asked for some dilaudid again - realizing that I was too tired during the night to have really observed how she responded to the two doses earlier that morning.
She was a new baby! She was KICKING! JUMPING! I've not seen her use her legs independently; yet, here she was jumping out of my arms - smiling and laughing all the while! I immediately told the nurse that we were going on a dilaudid every 3 hours overnight. I wanted her to be able to sleep pain free. And she did. At 2 am, the nurse woke me to let me know that Clara's blood pressure had decreased from hypertension of 110s/70s to 80s/50s. I couldn't believe it. The high blood pressure we had been medicating in an attempt to lower it was actually a symptom of her pain (Again! (we had seen this a few days previous)).
Clara continued to sleep well until she woke to eat at 6 o'clock this morning. She was alert, smiling, babbling. It was amazing. She played for about an hour and a half and then she and I fell asleep in my bed for another couple of hours (me) and 4 hours (her).
She didn't eat again all morning - which turned out to be due to some nausea as she threw up around 12:30. We restarted her Zofran to help with nausea and by, 2pm, I asked for some more dilaudid. She had a fair-sized feeding and a great period of play before taking what will probably be a 3 hour nap.
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