Long hospital visits are no fun...

My tiny little boy struggled from one health crisis to another, many of them not as serious as first thought. He was so small that equipment just wasn't available that fit him, monitors didn't work properly because he didn't cause enough pressure to register, echograms didn't work correctly and showed him with serious heart defects that turned out to be nothing, there wasn't even nappies to fit him. The hospital used 000 singlets, folded them in half and used them even though he was still swamped by the enormity of them. The small conducting pads they use for heart monitors etc covered almost his whole chest, just one of them almost covered him. We spent almost all our time at the hospital. I pretty much took the last train or tram home and headed back by about 8am the next morning, every day...



We met some incredible people while there. Staff that were simply awesome and parent dealing with unimaginable sorrow. Babies struggling, babies progressing to the next room which meant they were improving. Every move to another room meant one step closer to home. Babies wearing little eye masks so the oxygen they needed didn't blind them, babies who looked perfect, absolute giants compared to my tiny baby yet who would never go home due to their medical condition. Babies who would die while their families wept. Every time one baby slipped backwards there was a collective holding of breath, hoping there would be an improvement for them. We all hoped for each other and hoped that our baby wouldn't be one who didn't make it.

Slowly but surely my son moved from one room to another and finally downstairs to the special care nursery instead of ICU. This was the final room before home, we were getting close. He was now 2 months old and I was still spending all my day at the hospital. I was fortunate there weren't other babies at home and I had that luxury. Here we were thinking that we were on he home stretch now when one morning I walked into the hospital and had that notion torn from me. There was a crowd of medical students surrounding my baby. I asked what they were doing, my son was a private patient and as such should not have had med students hanging around him. One blithely turned to me and said without preamble that my son was going to be operated on. I was shocked. Why? What was wrong? Why hadn't I been told before this was being organized? I told the Med students to leave and located one of the nurses asking her to locate my son's Doctor. It turned out that my son had bilateral inguinal hernias. They were huge ! Not really but on a baby still less than 2 kgs they were. My poor little boy was in such pain from them. So off to surgery almost immediately and I had the unenviable task of waiting while they fixed my baby.

All went well and my tiny boy went back to Special care after a period in recovery. Slowly he made sufficient progress that plans were being made to send him home at last. It was arranged that I would stay at the hospital for a weekend and then we could take him home, as long as he weighed over 1.8kgs. Yes, he was still that tiny. We got to the end of the weekend and the nurses weighed him. He didn't make weight. He was under the required weight and we wouldn't be able to go home. Until a nurse who felt it was time told me to go and feed him then weigh him again. With a bottle of milk inside him he tipped the scales at about 5 grams over the weight. We could go home after 3 months of hospitals. YAY !!!

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